Want to Live in a State Capital? Here Are the Ones to Avoid

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You might be hearing the rallying cry “storm the capital!” more and more in these contentious times. But what capital are we talking about exactly? And just how desirable a place is said capital to live?

Well, America’s centers for state government run the gamut from some of the nation’s most coveted cities to not so much. In fact, there’s a wide disparity between the capital haves and have-nots. So you may want to avoid Jackson, MS, according to a recent WalletHub report.

The personal finance website ranked the best—and worst—capitals to live in by the cost of living, housing prices, and median household income along with other factors like the unemployment rate, quality of the local schools, and overall quality of life in all 50 cities.

Jackson found itself bringing up the rear on the list because it has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation, according to the report. It also has the lowest percentage of millennials moving in.

But the median list price of a home was just $124,000 in Jackson, according to realtor.com®.

“There’s not a lot of growth there. We’re seeing businesses that are struggling instead of new jobs being brought there or new jobs being created,” says Jill Gonzalez, senior analyst at WalletHub. “The unemployment rate there is a little over the national average and about twice what it is in many of the cities at the top of the list.”

It’s also not necessarily the most fun place to be. In addition to having among the fewest restaurants per capita, Jackson also doesn’t have a lot of fitness centers, bars, and nightlife options, she says.

While Mississippi’s bottom-dwelling position on the “least desirable” list isn’t much of a shocker, the second-place capital is a legitimate surprise: Hartford, CT. Despite being in one of the states with the highest percentage of government employees and its residents having relatively low levels of debt compared to their median incomes, Hartford’s high 7%-plus unemployment rate and soaring cost of living pushed it over the edge, Gonzalez says.

“There’s this sense that it’s hard to keep up in Hartford and still maintain a good quality of life,” she says.

The city’s economic woes have led to steep price cuts on some of the larger homes in the city’s historic west end after they’ve been sitting on the market for a while, says West Hartford, CT–based real estate broker Lisa Barall-Matt of Re/Max Premiere Realty.

“The people who used to buy those larger homes were executives in the city or doctors who worked in various hospitals in the city,” she says. “There’s less of these buyers now.”

The median list price in Hartford was $159,000, according to realtor.com.

Jackson and Hartford were followed by Trenton, NJ; Montgomery, AL; and Carson City, NV, as the worst five state capitals in the nation. Rounding out the top 10 were Baton Rouge, LA; Providence, RI; Little Rock, AR; Dover, DE; and Indianapolis, IN.

The state capitals where you’d actually want to live

OK, enough negativity. What about the state capitals that are at the top of the livability list?

Austin, TX, gets the top nod, according to the report. The city had one of the highest median household incomes, had the lowest premature death rate, and offered some of the most attractions. It also had the second-highest number of millennial newcomers in the nation.

The median list price for a home was $435,000 in the city, according to realtor.com.

“It’s a rapidly growing city, a huge tech hub, a huge health care hub. It’s created its own industry around festivals like South by Southwest,” says Gonzalez. “The nightlife options are vast, and it’s a foodie city, too. And the cost of living is a lot lower than many similar cities.”

The city’s vibe, epitomized by its mottos “Keep Austin Weird” and “Live Music Capital of the World,” is also drawing in newcomers, says local Realtor® Phillip Miller of Austin Home Girls Realty.

“Many employers use the lifestyle in Austin as a recruiting tool to help bring in millennials,” he says. The combination of the University of Texas at Austin and the state capital have led to an atmosphere where you can go “into any restaurant in town and have someone in shorts and flip-flops sit right next to someone in a suit and a tie.”

Austin was followed by Boise, ID; Bismarck, ND; Lincoln; NE; and Madison, WI. The rest of the top 10 state capitals were Montpelier, VT; Concord, NH; Raleigh, NC; Salt Lake City, UT; and Cheyenne, WY.

The Midwestern states ranked highly due to their strong health care and school systems, Gonzalez says.

“The cities near the top of the list are tapping into the local college [and] university graduates to stay put and be motivated to open up shop right there,” says Gonzalez of those cities’ bustling economies. And “a lot of them have industries that are very different, but are each thriving.”

The post Want to Live in a State Capital? Here Are the Ones to Avoid appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

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