Here’s another one of those national “best places” reports in which Evanston managed to make its way into the top 10.
This one is from Forage, a company that provides sponsored guides to corporate jobs for college students.
After looking at 415 cities in counties with populations over 300,000 people, they crunched the numbers and concluded that Evanston ranks 9th in the nation as a desirable city for young professionals seeking work-life balance.
Here’s the full Top 10 list:
- Madison, Wisconsin
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Boulder, Colorado
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Waukesha, Wisconsin
- Seattle, Washington
- Evanston, Illinois
- Somerville, Massachusetts
Among the 10 factors considered in the report, Evanston scored better than average among the top cities with having a slightly below average hours worked per week, a slightly below average number of employed people without health insurance, a better than average walk score and more residents with easy access to parks.
But we did worse than average on commute time, unemployment rate, the percentage of renters who have to spend more than 30% of their income on rent, the number of poor mental health days per month and the number of arts entertainment and recreation establishments per capita.
We also had a lower than average share of residents in the young adult age group.
Here’s one caveat about the data used in the study. Forage claims our jobless rate is 6.6%. But the latest figures from the Illinois Employment Security Commission indicate Evanston’s jobless rate is 3.9%