100 Best Smallest Cities to live in the US. Asheville is #5!

AN ARTS & MUSIC CITY WITH AN UNCOMMON SPIRIT ANS SMARTS

To come up with its ranking of 100 cities tourism and real estate advising company says it analyzed US government and online data for metro areas with populations between 100,000 and 500,000. It then evaluated each city for metrics related environment, diversity, prosperity, attractions, entertainment, and online presence, according to the report. ASHEVILLE was not the only NC city that made it into the list. Wilmington ranked 26th, and Burlington, roughly 20 miles east of Greensboro, ranked 82nd. ASHEVILLE shines in the entertainment category, beating out all other cities on the list. Within that category, ASHEVILLE city ranked NUMBER 1! for nightlife and number 2 for shopping. "Unsurprisingly, the after-hours scene is a launching pad for musicians, offering what artists of all ages crave in a city: affordability, local beer and GOOD FOOD". Live music born of the region's bluegrass roots harmonizes with new talent and innovative sounds to the tune of almost 400 million in the region's tourism economy". But the corona pandemic could deliver a staggering economic blow to the region. One of Asheville's restaurants even made it to the Yelp's list of top eateries in 2020! On the latest list, Asheville also made it to the number 2 for its museums, part of the category that weighted attractions. Another high score went to the city's online presence, which mentioned the number of times a city is recommended or mentioned on the internet.

Overall, the top-ranked small city was Reno, Nevada, Naples, Santa Fe, Savannah and ASHEVILLE.

How we define the categories: The ranking evaluates each qualifying city across the six pillars of place equity. Place, Product, Programming, People, Prosperity and Promotion. The performance of the top 100 cities in this report is summarized in radar charts. Each hexagon in a radar chart represents a category of a city's competitive identity. (By Resonance Consultancy. Resonance.Co.com/reports. www.globenewswire.com June 2020)