San Antonio in bottom half of ‘best-run cities’ in the country

BEXAR COUNTY, Tex. (KTSA News) — Running a city is not an easy task.

2020 has been a true test on how local leaders across the country are able to manage tragedies.

WalletHub Monday released a ranking on the best-run cities in the nation, using a variety of metrics — including financial stability, education, health, safety, economy and infrastructure & pollution.

The website then took those rankings and put that up against the total budget per capita to come up with its overall ranking.

San Antonio came in 94th of 150 cities assessed — comparable to other cities like Columbus, Norfolk, Bridgeport, and Richmond.  It also came in 7th of the 10 Texas cities on the list.

The Alamo City was mid-pack nationally when it came down to quality of services, but was knocked for its total budget per capita.

Texas cities overall ranking (national rank):

1. Arlington, TX (28)
2. El Paso (40)
3. Corpus Christi (43)
4. Fort Worth (51)
5. Houston (72)
6. Austin (78)
7. San Antonio (96)
8. Dallas (99)
9. Garland (102)
10. Lubbock (109)

Texas cities ‘Quality of City Services’ rank:

1. Austin (16)
2. Arlington (49)
3. El Paso (66)
4. San Antonio (73)
5. Fort Worth (80)
6. Corpus Christi (83)
7. Garland (84)
8. Houston (89)
9. Dallas (104)
10. Lubbock (112)

Texas cities ‘Total Budget per Capita’ rank:

1. Arlington (33)
2. Corpus Christi (37)
3. El Paso (42)
4. Fort Worth (57)
5. Houston (71)
6. Dallas (93)
7. Lubbock (101)
8. San Antonio (103)
9. Garland (105)
10. Austin (110)

Of the five quality of city services ranking, San Antonio performed well in financial stability (37th nationally, 2nd in Texas) and education (51st nationally, 10th in Texas), but poorly for infrastructure & pollution (80th nationally, 2nd in Texas), safety (87th, 7th in Texas), economy (101st, 9th in Texas), and health (104th, 8th in Texas).

WalletHub used the Moody’s City Credit Rating and outstanding long-term debt per capital for its financial stability rankings; K-12 school system quality based on public schools rated by greatschools.org and high school graduation rate for its education rankings; infant mortality rate, average life expectancy, hospital beds per capita, quality of the public hospital system based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ranking of public hospital systems for the health score; violent crime rate, property crime rate, motor vehicle fatalities per capita, share of sheltered homeless people, and perception of safety by numbeo.com for its safety score; unemployment rate, underemployment rate, median annual household income adjusted for cost of living, median annual income growth rate, annual job growth rate, share of population living in poverty, economic mobility, growth in number of businesses, change in housing prices, Zillow home value one-year forecast, and building permit growth for the economic rankings; and quality of roads, average commute time, total land area easily accessible to public transportation, traffic congestion, pedestrian friendliness, bicycle friendliness, transit score, recreation friendliness, internet access, water quality, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, and share of parkland for its infrastructure and pollution score.

Top 10 cities nationally:

1. Nampa, ID
2. Boise, ID
3. Provo, UT
4. Las Cruces, NM
5. Durham, NC
6. Lexington-Fayette, KY
7. Missoula, MT
8. Fort Wayne, IN
9. Virginia Beach, VA
10. Nashua, NH

Bottom 10 cities nationally:

1. Washington, DC
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Gulfport, MS
4. Chattanooga, TN
5. New York, NY
6. Hartford, CT
7. Oakland, CA
8. Detroit, MI
9. Chicago, IL
10. Flint, MI