San Ramon ranks as the “best place to raise a family” in the Bay Area and the second-best location among all California cities for families looking to put down roots in the Golden State by a national consumer and personal finance organization.
San Ramon – with its highly-regarded schools, economic opportunity, natural beauty, overall safety and access to good medical care– was ranked at the top by WalletHub.com which studied 254 cities from San Diego to Eureka.
To help families find the best California cities to put down roots, WalletHub compared cities across four key “dimensions”:
- Family Life and Fun
- Education, Health and Safety
- Affordability
- Socioeconomic Environment.
WalletHub evaluated these dimensions or categories with 21 metrics with each graded on a 100-point scale with 100 indicating the “most suitable conditions for family life.” The metrics examined a broad range of factors parents consider when selecting a city to raise their children such as the unemployment rate, quality of schools, pediatricians per capita and “number of attractions.”
“We are proud of the results of this study which underscores what our residents know: San Ramon is an ideal place to live, work and raise a family,” said Vice-Mayor Phil O’Loane. “San Ramon is top-notch in everything that is important for all families.”
WalletHub’s recognition adds to the growing reputation of San Ramon as one of the nation’s best cities in America for economic and educational opportunity and overall quality of life. Earlier this year, San Ramon emerged as the leader in job growth in the Bay Area which remains a magnet for people across the world despite high housing costs and often challenging traffic. San Ramon’s ‘stock’ is also likely to increase in the Fall when it opens a new world-class, 300,000-square foot retail, entertainment and cultural center in the Fall – City Center at Bishop Ranch – designed by an internationally-renowned architect. It is also a hub for high-tech and “green” innovation such as driverless buses at Bishop Ranch and a hydrogen fueling station on Norris Canyon Road.
San Ramon earned a total score of 77.88. Only Folsom had a higher score – 80.84 – than San Ramon whose K-12 schools typically are consistently ranked at the top among California cities. With a population of 75,000, San Ramon has an extensive system of 56 parks and also contains several large parks operated by the East Bay Regional Park District. Located 35 miles east of San Francisco, San Ramon is one of the most diverse cities in the Bay Area and is marked by scenic hills which still harbor abundant wildlife ranging from gopher snakes to bobcats. It encompasses 18.56 square miles and is surrounded by the communities of Danville and Dublin as well as unincorporated lands in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
Each study dimension or category had a broad range of metrics.
Under “Family Life and Fun,” the metrics ranged from playgrounds per capita to the share of families with children aged 0 to 17 to climate.
In assigning a score to a city for “Education, Health and Safety,” the study evaluated, for example, the quality of the school system, the high school graduate rate, air quality, violent and property crime rate and pediatricians per capita.
The rate of separation and divorce, unemployment, wealth gap, and share of two-parent families were among the metrics in the “Socioeconomic Environment” dimension.
In recent years, news reports have chronicled a significant exodus of people from California in part because of the nation’s high housing cost, taxes and often grueling traffic. But the number of people moving to the Golden State equals the number of people who leave each year. And the study concludes that California still boasts “riches (that) are a magnet for families in search of opportunity.”
The combination of economic, educational and family benefits, natural beauty, recreational opportunity and entertainment options, the study’s authors conclude, makes “California the ideal place for parents to raise their children.”
You can read the entire story at https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-cities-for-families-in-california/15993/