New 'Top 100 Best Places to Live' list led by Huntsville

Downtown Huntsville — Huntsville topped Livability’s 100 Best Places to Live” list. (Ben Johnson / Hville Blast)

Huntsville is no stranger to national accolades, having landed on numerous “Best of…” lists, and the Rocket City can add another honor to its trophy case, as Livability.com named it the top City to live in on its recent list.

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Huntsville makes Livability’s 2026 ‘Top 100 Best Places to Live’ list

this weekend — Lowe Mill was one of the examples given for Huntsville’s top ranking. (Hville Blast)

Livability’s 2026 Top 100 Best Places to Live list showcases the nation’s most vibrant and livable small to mid-sized cities. This list, now in its 13th year of publication, empowers users to customize the set of places based on their individualized priorities, from health and cost of living to entertainment and the local job market.

The publication partnered with the data experts at Applied Geographic Solutions to analyze more than 2,000 U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000. The ranking is curated using nearly 100 data points across eight broad categories:

Economy
Housing & Cost of Living
Amenities
Transportation
Environment
Safety
Education
Health

Huntsville landed at the top of the list, with education, affordability and economic opportunity cited as just some of the reasons.

“Huntsville was our number one city. That means, typically, that they scored really well, pretty much across all the categories. They were actually scored better than any other city in at least four economy, education, environment, housing and cost of living, again, hitting that solid tie in of being affordable and also having high quality of life.

So really knocking it out of the park in a lot of areas that we look at.”

Amanda Ellis, Livability Editor in Chief

The publication listed multiple reasons to live in Huntsville, highlighting:

Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment and Orion Amphitheater
Historic ties to NASA and Redstone Arsenal
Eli Lilly’s $6 billion pharmaceutical campus and major expansions by industry giants like Blue Origin and Meta
Its walkable downtown and access to the trails of Monte Sano State Park and Huntsville Botanical Garden

Not only did Huntsville make the list, but our neighbor down south made the top 10 as well, as Birmingham came in at no. 6. Alabama and Texas made up half the top 10, which includes:

Huntsville, Alabama
Carmel, Indiana
Sugar Land, Texas
Naperville, Illinois
Plano, Texas
Birmingham, Alabama
Troy, Michigan
Overland Park, Kansas
Round Rock, Texas
New Braunfels, Texas

Read the full list HERE.

Huntsville’s recent accolades

Rocket Park, U.S. Space & Rocket Center. (Lacey Muenstermann / Hville Blast)

From being named a great city for tech to making the list of best family-friendly cities, Huntsville has amassed some impressive honors in the last few years. Just some of the “Best of” lists Huntsville has landed on include: