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About Move Where USA

Find the right place for your next move

Tell us what matters to you, and we'll rank your best places to live and show you why.

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Free · No account needed · About three minutes

32,330
towns and cities compared
209
scores behind the rankings
57
named public data sources

How it works

Three steps, start to shortlist

  1. Tell us what matters to you

    A short set of questions about the life you want: weather, budget, work, the people around you, and how you like to spend a weekend. Takes about three minutes.

  2. Get a ranked list of places

    We weigh 209 scores against your answers and rank all 32,330 communities. Read the results as a list, a spreadsheet, or a map.

  3. Change your mind as often as you like

    Nothing is locked in. Slide a priority up or down, rule out a state or a town size, or just say what you want to change in plain English. The list updates as you go.

  • 191Bozeman, MT$685K+ Outdoors− Winters
  • 288Asheville, NC$430K+ Climate− Job market
  • 384Bentonville, AR$355K+ Cost− Summers
Illustrative previewEvery match shows its overall fit, a typical home price, and the tradeoff you would be making. Your real results will be personalized.
Our data standard

See what is behind a score

Our ratings are built from public government, academic, and open-data records: the Census, NOAA, the CDC, the EPA, FEMA and dozens more. Open a rating to see what went into it.

  • You can see the source

    Ratings name the dataset they come from and link straight to it.

  • You can see the method

    Ratings explain what they measure and how the number is worked out.

  • You can see the gaps

    When a measure is old, indirect, or missing somewhere, we say so on the page.

Data You Can Trust

Data sources

Where our data comes from

57 sources, with 176 links to the original data. Open a category if you want to check our work.

People & opportunity

Population, housing, work, and taxes

15 sources

Core measures of who lives in a place, what housing costs, how residents work, and the state tax environment.

Education

Adult attainment and school outcomes

6 sources

Resident adult educational attainment plus public-school achievement, growth, graduation, advanced-course access, and the district geography used to connect schools to places.

  • U.S. Census ACS Educational Attainment

    Direct 2020-2024 ACS five-year S1501 percentages, counts, and published 90% margins for resident adults age 25+ at high-school-or-higher, bachelor's-or-higher, and graduate/professional thresholds.

    2024 ACS adult educational attainment (S1501)

  • Stanford Education Data Archive 2025.1

    Administrative-district, school, and state all-student math and reading/language-arts achievement on Stanford's subject-specific Cohort Standardized scales, plus district and state combined-subject grade-to-grade learning rates on the Grade Year Standardized scale. Public School Quality uses these resolutions as a disclosed evidence ladder; the narrower standalone criteria retain their district-only rules. Pooled 2022-2025 evidence is preferred, and 2009-2019 is explicitly historical.

    SEDA 2025.1 downloadsPermanent dataset recordAdministrative-district achievement CSVAdministrative-district growth CSVSchool achievement CSVState achievement CSVState growth CSVCodebookTechnical documentationMethods

  • Stanford Education Data Archive 6.0 (legacy school criteria)

    County-level pooled math, reading, and academic-growth estimates retained only for version-aware explanations of historical stored results and school criteria that have not yet moved to approved current lineages.

    SEDA 6.0 downloads

  • U.S. Education Department Ed Data Express

    Official EDFacts 2022-23 all-student four-year adjusted-cohort graduation rates and cohort counts for local education agencies. Public School Quality uses eligible exact-district evidence only inside its modest confidence-weighted graduation contribution.

    2022-23 four-year ACGR data builder

  • Urban Institute Education Data API

    CCD, CRDC, and EDFacts school data for enrollment, graduation, AP/IB, dual enrollment, testing participation, and advanced-course availability.

    API documentation

  • National Center for Education Statistics

    Current 2024-2025 administrative, elementary, secondary, and unified school-district boundaries. Public-School Math Achievement, Reading Achievement, and Academic Growth use exact administrative, elementary, or unified containment of the place representative point and never a nearest-district fallback.

    District-boundary overviewCurrent composite boundary layer

Safety, climate & environment

Crime, weather, air, hazards, and future risk

13 sources

Observed conditions and modeled risk signals used to compare personal safety, climate comfort, air quality, disasters, smoke, and resilience.

  • FBI Crime Data Explorer via OpenCrime

    Processed FBI city and state reporting for violent and property crime, with jurisdiction coverage and reporting limitations retained in rating explanations.

    Processed FBI data

  • NOAA U.S. Climate Normals

    1991-2020 annual, seasonal, monthly, and hourly station normals for heat, cold, seasonality, precipitation, snowfall, humidity, dew point, heat index, and wind.

    Climate normals

  • National Weather Service Heat Index

    Official apparent-temperature method combining air temperature and relative humidity under shaded, light-wind assumptions.

    Heat Index methodology

  • National Weather Service Beaufort wind scale

    Official reference bands that relate sustained wind speeds to familiar calm, light-air, breeze, and stronger-wind descriptions.

    Beaufort wind scale

  • Stanford wildfire-smoke PM2.5 model

    Peer-reviewed daily 10 km wildfire-attributable surface PM2.5 estimates, aggregated to counties for the long-run smoke-exposure baseline.

    Replication data and county estimates

  • NOAA Hazard Mapping System

    Daily light, medium, and heavy smoke-plume polygons used to identify recent EPA monitor days with stronger satellite-observed smoke overhead.

    Annual smoke bundles

  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

    AirData monitoring summaries, finalized ozone design-value reports, and Level III ecoregions used as broad vegetation context for pollen potential.

    EPA AirDataOzone design valuesLevel III ecoregions

  • Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Noise Map

    Modeled 24-hour average road, rail, and aviation noise on a 30-meter grid, 2022 edition, checked at every populated 2020 Census block for Quiet Surroundings.

    Noise map and downloadsDocumentation

  • NASA Black Marble night lights

    Yearly upward light at night from the VIIRS satellite sensor, corrected for moonlight, clouds, and the atmosphere, turned into estimated sky glow for Dark Skies with a published model calibrated on National Park Service sky measurements.

    Yearly night lights (VNP46A4)User guideSky glow model

  • USDA Forest Service Science Tree Canopy Cover

    Modeled 30-meter percent tree-canopy cover sampled around named communities as the local vegetation input for tree-pollen screening.

    Tree Canopy Cover data

  • North American allergenic-pollen calendars

    Peer-reviewed daily pollen calendars and annual taxon totals from National Allergy Bureau stations used to calibrate and validate the tree-pollen exposure model.

    Published pollen calendars

  • FEMA National Risk Index

    County natural-hazard risk, expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community-resilience inputs across major hazard types.

    NRI metadataNRI access

  • Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation

    Federal county screening data used for projected extreme heat, consecutive dry spells, extreme precipitation, late-century sea-level-rise exposure, and the current published Wildfire Hazard Potential class.

    CMRA documentation

Health & care

Outcomes, hospitals, clinicians, and shortages

6 sources

Population-health estimates and facility, provider, quality, shortage, and safety-net data used in health and accessibility ratings.

Community & civic life

Politics, policy inclusion, and religion

4 sources

County election results, state and municipal LGBTQ policy scorecards, and county religious-organization data used as clearly labeled community proxies.

  • County Presidential Election Returns

    County presidential vote shares used for broad liberal, conservative, moderation, and political-homogeneity comparisons.

    MIT Election Data & Science Lab

  • Movement Advancement Project LGBTQ Equality Maps

    Current state and District of Columbia policy tallies across more than 50 LGBTQ-related laws and policies, used as the 70% statewide component of LGBTQ Policy Environment.

    State policy maps

  • Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index

    Selected municipal policy and inclusion scorecards used as the 30% reviewed-local component of LGBTQ Policy Environment; unreviewed localities receive a disclosed conservative factor.

    Municipal scorecards

  • U.S. Religion Census

    County congregations and adherent counts used for religious prevalence, diversity, pluralism, and broad faith-community measures.

    2020 data documentation

Access, maps & outdoors

Transit, destinations, terrain, airports, and recreation

13 sources

Mapped infrastructure, venues, landforms, protected areas, airports, and ski areas used for proximity and access ratings.

  • EPA Smart Location Database and National Walkability Index

    Block-group walkability, activity density, transit-stop walking distance, peak scheduled frequency, and fixed-guideway access population-weighted into Census places for Walkability and Transit Access.

    National Walkability Index methodologySmart Location mapping

  • Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transit Map

    Current mapped public-transit stops and modes used as a limited corroboration and coverage fallback for place-wide Transit Access.

    National Transit Map

  • FCC National Broadband Map

    Fixed broadband availability that providers report for every home, summarized by Census place, used for the gigabit, fiber, and 100 Mbps shares in Fast Internet.

    Nationwide data downloadsData download specifications

  • U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb Hydrography

    Official areal lakes, reservoirs, rivers, bays, and coastal water used as the physical-water foundation for Water Recreation Access; place-directory pins cannot create water evidence by themselves.

    Areal hydrography service

  • Overture Maps Foundation Places

    Open place records used for dining, nightlife, culture, live music, parks, trails, beaches, water recreation, surf scenes, and regional gateways. Water-recreation places count only after physical-water validation.

    Places documentation

  • OpenGolfAPI

    Course access and hole counts used to compare nearby golf options.

    Course directory

  • Overture Maps Foundation Transportation

    Fixed-release trail-compatible path, footway, track, steps, and bridleway linework used as one of two bounded Hiking Access trail inventories.

    Transportation documentation

  • U.S. Geological Survey

    National Digital Trails linework and PAD-US protected natural land used for Hiking Access and Public Land Nearby, plus GNIS community coordinates and native 3DEP terrain used for horizon and elevation measures.

    National Digital TrailsPAD-USGNIS3DEP

  • Natural Earth

    Public-domain land and lake outlines that separate land from water when measuring natural land and public land around each place.

    Land and lakes

  • National Park Service

    Land Resources boundary data used to measure proximity to National Park Service protected areas.

    Boundary data

  • Federal Aviation Administration

    Final annual passenger boardings plus primary/commercial-service and hub classifications used to identify passenger airports and estimate service scale.

    Passenger boarding dataAirport categories

  • OurAirports

    Open airport identity and coordinate records used to locate FAA-classified commercial passenger airports.

    Airport data

  • OpenSkiMap and OpenStreetMap

    Mapped ski-area geometry and attributes used to estimate access to nearby downhill skiing.

    Ski-area data

Common questions

Before you start

What if I am not moving yet?
No problem at all. Plenty of people use it to settle an argument, plan a retirement years out, or just see how their own town scores.
Do I need an account?
Not for your first search. Create one when you want to save it, come back to it later, or share it with someone you are moving with.
Does it cost anything?
No. Answering the questions and seeing your ranked places is free. Premium adds an expanded set of scores, custom columns you build yourself, more AI messages, and unlimited saved searches. It also lets you search together with a partner, who does not need to pay.
How much should I trust the rankings?
It is one well-documented opinion. Use it to narrow thousands of options down to the one or two worth a real visit. We can’t make the final call for you, but we can give you the data to test your instincts.