By Robert Haugh
The Bay Area’s best and largest newspaper ranks Santa Clara as #6 among the Bay Area’s 25 cities for quality of life.
“We based our rankings on 11 qualities for which there is widely available data,” San Francisco Chronicle reporter Amy Coval wrote.
Here are the top 10 on the list:
Mountain View was #9 and the only other Santa Clara County city in the top 10.
San Jose was ranked #12.
The Chronicle looked at the following measures:
- bars,
- bike score,
- racial and ethnic diversity,
- distance to the nearest airport,
- number of food retailers,
- libraries,
- movie theaters,
- percentage of residents within a half-mile of a park or open space,
- percentage of residents with less than a 30 minute commute to work,
- transit stops, and
- walk score.
“While we would have liked to include many other measures, such as air quality and pet-friendliness, data wasn’t always available,” according to the paper. “Still, we believe these 11 measures give a good sense of what it’s like to live in these cities.”
Santa Clara’s best ranking was for food retailers per 10,000 residents.
The Mission City ranked only #15 on movie theaters per 10,000 residents, our lowest ranking in any category.
We probably would have ranked higher if the Chronicle included utility rates. But we would have ranked lower if they watch our City Council meetings.
Nonetheless, the Mission City can be proud of this ranking.