United States · 12,940graded towns · 40+ public data sets
Find your place.
Tell us where and what matters. We’ll weigh every graded town on it, show you the ones that fit with their grades, and tell you honestly what you’d give up.
Your top 5, with their overall grades
1Carlisle, MAA+
2Chatfield, MNA+
3Boxford, MAA+
4Barnesville, MNA+
5Los Alamos, NMA+
Top 25Fits (top 150)
Where?
Anywhere in the US
Or pick states
Start from
Your own mix: Nice counts once, Important twice, Must three times (a Must also rules out the bottom 40% on it).
Looking in the US, you care most about affordability and safety and would like great schools, health, jobs and income and the outdoors. 12,938 of 12,940 graded towns fit, and your best match is Carlisle, Massachusetts.Ruled out: 2 by missing grades. Copy a link to these results
Type any town and we’ll show where it lands for you, its grades, and what’s holding it back. Towns of 2,500+ with an overall grade are matched; smaller places and college campuses aren’t.
How matching works
How does the match work?
Each thing you pick reads the town’s grade on it: its standing among every U.S. town of 2,500+ people, the same figure behind its letter. Your match is the weighted average: Nice counts once, Important twice, Must three times. A Must also rules out towns in the bottom 40% on it. Lifestyle presets (warm winters, a ski area, the coast) are rules first: a town has to meet the rule printed under the chips, then it’s ranked.
Why do results show a letter instead of a match score?
The order is your match; the letter is the town’s overall grade, the same one on its town page, with its rank in its state. A town can fit you best and still grade lower overall, when it’s strong on what you picked.
Why are schools compared within a state?
Each state writes its own tests, so a score in one state can’t be compared with another. A town’s Schools grade ranks it against the rest of its own state.
What if a town is missing a grade?
Many towns don’t report crime to the FBI, and small districts have no test results. A missing grade counts as average and the card says so; a town missing more than a third of what you picked is left out. Presets need the grades they rank on.
Does anyone pay to be listed?
No. Every grade comes from public data: the Census, the FBI, state education departments, the CDC, FEMA, the EPA, NOAA, Zillow and OpenStreetMap.
Sources: TownRatings grades (from the Census ACS, FBI crime data, state education departments via EDFacts, CDC PLACES, FEMA National Risk Index, the EPA Smart Location Database, OpenStreetMap, PAD-US and the National Register of Historic Places); NOAA climate normals; Zillow; data/coast (NOAA shoreline); for trips, Census LEHD visitor jobs and OpenSkiMap. Grades updated November 1, 2026.
Your best match
#2
#3
