How Cities Rank in the Well-Being of Their Residents

Provo, Utah; Raleigh, N.C.; and San Jose, Calif.; are miles apart geographically and culturally, but they share at least one thing: a high sense of well-being among their residents, according to an index that ranks metro areas on factors that contribute to peoples’ productivity and health costs.

The 2014 Community Well-Being Rankings are the latest from the polling company Gallup and the consulting firm Healthways, both of which started surveying across the U.S. and abroad in 2008. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index surveyed residents to get a sense of their social, physical and financial health, as well as their sense of purpose and connections to their community -- all factors that contribute greatly to worker productivity, societal health costs and the economic competitiveness of a place, Gallup and Healthways argued.

“Those things are kind of hard to scientifically measure, but they’re very real and very significant, and those are the things leaders can influence, most certainly,” said Dan Witters, Gallup’s research director on the index, in a phone interview.

The 2014 rankings are based on 55-question surveys of about 175,000 people across all 50 states. Gallup wouldn't go into heavy detail about the kinds of questions asked, but they covered a person’s sense of purpose (enjoying their livelihood, feeling motivated), social health (supportive relationships that energize), financial health (level of financial stress), community ties (attachment to a place, sense of pride) and physical health (often specific characteristics like body-mass index). 

Each community, defined as a metropolitan statistical area under the U.S. Census Bureau, received a rank in each category according to the strength of the responses from their residents and an overall rank as well. 

Taking the top spot was Florida’s North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton area, which performed especially well in financial and physical health. Honolulu, Raleigh, California’s Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura area and El Paso, Texas, rounded out the rest of the top five. El Paso was the only community to take the top ranking in two categories: sense of purpose and physical health. 

The South, Southwest and West Coast dominated the top 30, where only one Northeast city, Boston, appeared.

Honolulu and Utah’s Provo-Orem have consistently scored among the top communities, but so have the San Jose area (8th this year), Washington, D.C. and its Virginia suburbs (9th this year), San Francisco (12th this year) and Minnesota’s Twin Cities (17th). 

Ohio fared poorly, with five of its major cities in the bottom 10 percent. Also finishing near last were Indianapolis, Ind. (96th); Knoxville, Tenn. (98th); Scranton, Pa. (94th); and Detroit (92nd).  

This year’s survey featured a couple notable changes. First, it was limited to the 100 largest metro areas, whereas previous years featured upwards of 200 areas. Secondly, the latest index includes questions on social health and community attachment that were “pretty much entirely absent from the old model,” Witters said. “We’ve done enough research since 2007, and we knew it had to be in there, that it’d improve the efficacy of our model.”

Some cities are likely to chafe at a low ranking or dismiss the survey as overly subjective, but Witters pointed out that the survey did include objective physical health measures as well as subjective measures that “statistically earn their place at the table by demonstrating how they link with outcomes:” health-care utilization, absenteeism, per-capita violent crime, so forth. 

“These questions are all there because they link to outcomes both at the individual level and population level, demonstrably so and repeatedly so,” Witters said.

Well-Being Index Data

Gallup and Healthways ranked 100 metro areas on five components related to well being. Listed figures refer to a metro area's ranking.

Composite Rank	Area	Purpose	Social	Financial	Community	Physical
1	North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton	11	4	2	12	2
2	Urban Honolulu	14	70	1	6	26
3	Raleigh	9	6	13	3	24
4	Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura	6	3	11	8	29
5	El Paso	1	57	63	23	1
6	Austin-Round Rock	12	37	37	4	21
7	Provo-Orem	18	9	28	1	47
8	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara	51	44	3	32	4
9	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria	27	12	5	35	9
10	Winston-Salem	34	8	58	14	14
11	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim	16	46	40	44	3
12	San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward	48	31	10	33	8
13	Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land	4	36	22	30	33
14	Chattanooga	8	1	64	2	59
15	Spokane-Spokane Valley	32	38	4	51	23
16	San Diego-Carlsbad	41	53	25	18	15
17	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington	53	58	7	16	22
18	Omaha-Council Bluffs	38	47	6	10	72
19	Cape Coral-Fort Myers	19	14	33	28	17
20	San Antonio-New Braunfels	13	60	56	11	54
21	Richmond	31	7	38	27	40
22	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington	10	49	34	24	50
23	Charleston-North Charleston	35	5	75	19	32
24	Springfield	69	16	15	68	10
25	Denver-Aurora-Lakewood	39	72	26	22	25
26	Grand Rapids-Wyoming	52	35	8	17	61
27	Boston-Cambridge-Newton	66	34	20	26	16
28	Colorado Springs	30	54	87	25	27
29	Tucson	24	10	41	54	18
30	Stockton-Lodi	17	20	21	93	13
31	Albuquerque	22	69	71	59	7
32	Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia	20	43	65	36	35
33	Boise City	62	65	68	9	41
34	Lancaster	71	93	9	13	43
35	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach	26	23	92	48	11
36	Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk	63	88	43	58	5
37	Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford	61	30	18	62	20
38	Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale	33	40	48	50	37
39	Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis	36	29	30	60	30
40	Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade	56	27	45	56	34
41	Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford	25	39	84	49	38
42	Salt Lake City	60	64	74	29	36
43	Wichita	29	41	16	46	74
44	Nashville-Murfreesboro-Franklin	49	84	61	31	53
45	Bakersfield	3	2	99	96	31
46	Fresno	5	89	85	90	12
47	Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville	70	75	66	37	28
48	New Haven-Milford	47	48	50	91	6
49	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell	37	42	77	67	42
50	Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin	59	55	95	5	70
51	Des Moines-West Des Moines	90	74	23	7	88
52	Augusta-Richmond County	46	11	90	39	65
53	Jacksonville	45	45	52	70	45
54	Baton Rouge	2	19	83	53	87
55	New York-Newark-Jersey City	75	61	60	72	19
56	Tulsa	7	22	59	21	95
57	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario	23	52	78	75	46
58	Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway	15	28	55	47	83
59	Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton	78	32	42	45	55
60	Harrisburg-Carlisle	54	76	24	43	75
61	Greensboro-High Point	57	62	91	42	73
62	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue	84	66	36	55	58
63	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro	91	73	57	41	51
64	Chicago-Naperville-Elgin	50	77	39	79	44
65	Madison	93	95	17	15	84
66	Syracuse	44	13	27	78	67
67	Ogden-Clearfield	92	83	97	20	56
68	Albany-Schenectady-Troy	55	17	14	74	68
69	Pittsburgh	81	68	12	61	71
70	Providence-Warwick	86	92	47	65	52
71	Jackson	21	63	88	95	63
72	Rochester	88	71	32	64	76
73	Oklahoma City	64	51	35	34	92
74	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington	72	21	44	82	57
75	Columbia	43	33	100	92	39
76	New Orleans-Metairie	40	80	94	52	79
77	Kansas City	68	56	49	57	85
78	Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise	79	87	69	84	49
79	Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News	76	50	54	85	62
80	Lakeland-Winter Haven	42	15	93	71	82
81	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater	67	59	79	63	69
82	Baltimore-Columbia-Towson	83	25	31	94	64
83	Memphis	28	24	98	89	78
84	Cleveland-Elyria	85	94	29	86	60
85	Akron	82	82	62	88	48
86	Louisville-Jefferson County	74	97	89	40	89
87	Worcester	99	18	72	80	66
88	St. Louis	65	67	46	73	90
89	Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls	97	78	19	87	80
90	Birmingham-Hoover	58	90	81	66	96
91	Cincinnati	73	85	53	77	86
92	Detroit-Warren-Dearborn	87	86	70	97	81
93	Columbus	94	96	80	69	91
94	Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton	89	91	51	98	77
95	Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach	80	26	82	83	94
96	Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson	77	98	67	76	99
97	Dayton	95	79	73	81	98
98	Knoxville	98	99	96	38	100
99	Toledo	96	81	86	100	97
100	Youngstown-Warren-Boardman	100	100	76	99	93

Source: Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index