Boston Named to Outside Magazine’s Best Places To Live List
In Boston, people are fit. Jumping rope in the Back Bay. Photo by Melissa Malamut
If there’s a “healthy city” ranking that doesn’t include Boston, we’d love to see it. Because it doesn’t exist.
Outside magazine took the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual list of 50 healthiest cities and broke it down even further in order to find the “Best Active Town” in the country. They added a few small and midsize towns to the already extensive list, and then consulted with local runners, cyclists, climbers, and surfers (yes, there are surfers in Boston, see below) in each town.
What qualifies a town as an active town? The editors and experts looked at things like access to farmers’ markets, nearby adventure, bike shares, healthy food availability, and proximity to great trails, beaches, and mountain sports. The final list of 17 “towns” includes Boston. Our beloved city was chosen for its 2,200 acres of parks, free fitness “tribes” like the November Project, and access to great running routes and fresh seafood.
Outside also says that Boston’s location is top-notch.
The Berkshires, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the beaches of the Cape and North Shore are all within three hours.
Of course Boston made the list. In the past year alone the city’s been ranked in the top five of every health and fitness list on the planet. We offered more free fitness classes this summer than any other “healthy” city in the country. Our hospitals are some of the best in the world. Where we didn’t score so well, apparently, is on social media. The final list was put up on Facebook for a public, crowd-sourced vote and Park City, Utah was the winner, followed by Greenville, North Carolina.
“With more than 21,000 votes, our third-annual Facebook competition was our most competitive yet,” said Outside editor Christopher Keyes in a press release. “Greenville and Park City battled it out for weeks. We’re proud to showcase both towns in the magazine and thrilled with the level of engagement this program has garnered from readers.”
Surfers in Beacon hill. Photo by Melissa Malamut
In addition to Park City and Greenville, the others winners include Waitsfield, Vermont; Bozeman, Montana; San Diego, Calif.; Oklahoma City; Spokane, Wash.; Honolulu; Washington D.C.; and more. For the full list, click here.
