Gloria Cabada-Leman

It probably comes as no surprise to residents of the Bozone, that the small mountain community of Bozeman Montana ranks in the Top 25 Best Places To Live in the U.S. The website, Livability.com centers it’s ranking efforts on smaller and medium size cities, and has published such interesting lists like ‘Most Unexpected Golf Cities‘ and ‘Best City to Steal A Kiss‘

One of their most recent ventures ranked the 100 Best Places To Live, taking into account economic, housing, health and education factors, among others.

Bozeman is ranked 23rd overall, but comes in 3rd when ranked by Social and Civic capital, which the website describes as measurements of “things like crime, voter participation, the amount of time people spend partaking in community activities and church membership. Cities with low crime and high involvement scored best.”

The site says this particular attribute concerns a city’s ability to work hard on investing in their communities.

“They’re working to attract and keep people who don’t just contribute to a community, but who engage with it. They’re developing spaces where people can work and play together, and collaborate and create together as well as living together.”

Bozeman’s score was also bolstered by above average scores when it comes to criteria such as Health and Education. Faltering only in the Housing criteria, Bozeman ranked below average.

Palo Alto, CA, deep in the heart of Silcon Valley and home to HP and Tesla Motors and numerous other tech firms came in first thanks to what the website says is mild weather, a thriving economy, great cultural and natural amenities; and one of the highest-ranked universities in the world (Stanford).