For the second year in a row, Naperville has been named the best city to live in America by Niche.
The online database put Naperville at No. 1 in its 2025 list, which takes 15 factors into account, with each assigned a different weight. It analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Census, and FBI, along with millions of reviews.
Naperville got an overall Niche grade of A+. It also scored an A+ in the categories of public schools, good for families, and health & fitness. It earned a solid A for jobs and outdoor activities, and an A- in the fields of housing and diversity.
Its lowest ranking came in a category beyond its control: a C+ for weather.
Naperville No. 1 on a bevy of “best city” lists
But “Best Cities to Live in America” wasn’t the only list where it earned the top spot.
Niche also gave Naperville the No. 1 ranking for “Best Cities to Buy a House in America,” “Best Cities to Raise a Family in America,” and “Cities with the Best Public Schools in America.”
In each, that was out of 229 total cities across the country with a population of 100,000 or more.
Naperville lands in top 20 in five other Niche lists
And Naperville landed within the top 20 in a number of other Niche lists as well:
Though some categories are similar, Niche makes distinctions between “suburbs” (population of at least 1,000, located within a Census-defined urbanized area), and “places” (non-rural town with population of 1,000 or more – including neighborhoods, suburbs, and cities.) Cities, as noted above, are “for an urbanized area with a population of 100,000 or more.”
No matter how you define it, Naperville has made its mark on the Niche scale, with online reviewers calling it an “amazing place to live,” a “perfect balance of suburban peace and convenience,” and with a school system that’s “top tier.”
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