Charlottesville ranks as the nation's best place to live, according to the popular travel guide company Frommer's.
Yesterday, Frommer's released "Cities Ranked and Rated," a guide to more than 400 of the country's communities.
The guide scored metro areas in 10 categories -- economy and jobs, cost of living, climate, education, heath and healthcare, crime, transportation, leisure, arts and culture and overall quality of life -- and then averaged the scores to compute the area's overall score.
Charlottesville scored especially high in the health and healthcare and the economy and jobs categories, ranking eighth and 12th, respectively, out of the cities evaluated.
City government officials credit Charlottesville's top-notch ranking to a wide range of qualities and strengths, including the City's economy, environment and residents.
"I think there are a number of issues that illustrate Charlottesville's strengths," City spokesperson Maurice Jones said. "The overall quality of life, the strong economy, the low unemployment rate, a number of strong schools K through 12, and the community college and the University as well, are all strengths of our city."
In addition, City Council members said recent efforts to improve the City may have played a part in the ranking.
"We've had several years of falling crime rates and done a lot to protect our parks and open spaces," Council member Kevin Lynch said. "We've really focused on making Charlottesville a pedestrian environment where people can walk around and live in a healthy manner."
The City's status as a college town also played a role in its top-notch ranking.
"The University definitely affected Charlottesville's ranking," Frommer's Senior Publicist Heather Hunter said. "The authors found that college towns rated high, and that had a lot to do with Charlottesville's ranking."
Members of City government also attribute Charlottesville's high ranking, in part, to the status of the University.
"The University being one of the top institutions of higher learning in the nation brings a certain level of prestige to Charlottesville," Jones said. "In addition, the University is the economic engine for the City."
However, the University could do more to promote the entire community, Lynch said.
"We look to the University, as the number one employer in Charlottesville, because they set a lot of wage policy," Lynch said. "The University tends to pay at the low end of the pay scale. The University should do more to help keep Charlottesville affordable for the people who live here."
The University also could do more to protect the local environment, Lynch added.
"One of the reasons we've gotten high rankings is the attention we pay to the environment," Lynch said. "We have been waiting for some time for the University to put scrubbers on the steam plant by the hospital. The plant puts out sulfur dioxide every day."
The recent ranking could potentially have both positive and negative effects on the community.
"Charlottesville has received these types of rankings quite often in the past 10 to 15 years, and they certainly have a positive effect," Jones said. "People want to come here and participate in a community that cares for them."
However, with a growing demand to live in Charlottesville comes an increase in the cost of living.
"One of the downsides of the high demand to live in Charlottesville, however, is that is creating an increase in the cost of living," Lynch said.
Although Charlottesville has been given top rankings in the past, this one is unique, Mayor Maurice Cox said.
"For the first time Charlottesville was compared to a full range of cities, including cities with hundreds of thousands of people, and still came out on top," Cox said.
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