report from RentCafe<\/a>, a nationwide apartment search website, defined livability as \u201chow well a metro area supports residents\u2019 overall well-being, comfort and social engagement in day-to-day life.\u201d<\/p>\nVideo: Dine Downtown returns to Sacramento<\/p>\n
RentCafe analysts ranked 149 metro areas across the country on a total of 17 metrics divided into three main categories: socioeconomics, quality of life and location\/community.<\/p>\n
San Francisco is the most livable metro in California, according to RentCafe, followed by Santa Rosa and Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Analysts compiled the rankings by looking at metros within the contiguous U.S. with a population of at least 300,000.<\/p>\n
California metropolitan areas performed relatively poorly overall, with the highest-rated metro in the Golden State \u2014 San Francisco \u2014 sitting at No. 33. Santa Rosa is No. 43 overall, followed by Sacramento at No. 47. California metro rankings were hampered by their performances in the socioeconomic and location\/community categories.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, California metros performed well in the quality-of-life category. Quality of life was based on metrics such as health care providers, food index and access to exercise options, among others.<\/p>\n
San Francisco is the No. 3 overall metro based strictly on quality of life. Washington D.C., and Seattle are Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.<\/p>\n
Sacramento is No. 13 based on quality of life.<\/p>\n
CA rank<\/p>\n
U.S. rank<\/p>\n
Metro area<\/p>\n
Socioeconomics rank<\/p>\n
Quality of life rank<\/p>\n
Location\/Community rank<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
33<\/p>\n
San Francisco<\/p>\n
132<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
98<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
43<\/p>\n
Santa Rosa<\/p>\n
108<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
94<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
47<\/p>\n
Sacramento<\/p>\n
122<\/p>\n
13<\/p>\n
96<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
55<\/p>\n
San Diego<\/p>\n
119<\/p>\n
12<\/p>\n
112<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
60<\/p>\n
Oxnard<\/p>\n
114<\/p>\n
32<\/p>\n
101<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
77<\/p>\n
Los Angeles<\/p>\n
143<\/p>\n
46<\/p>\n
72<\/p>\n
7<\/p>\n
93<\/p>\n
Santa Maria<\/p>\n
148<\/p>\n
35<\/p>\n
114<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
100<\/p>\n
Vallejo<\/p>\n
141<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
137<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
119<\/p>\n
Riverside<\/p>\n
102<\/p>\n
58<\/p>\n
144<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
121<\/p>\n
San Jose<\/p>\n
129<\/p>\n
62<\/p>\n
143<\/p>\n
11<\/p>\n
128<\/p>\n
Stockton<\/p>\n
138<\/p>\n
60<\/p>\n
148<\/p>\n
12<\/p>\n
132<\/p>\n
Modesto<\/p>\n
147<\/p>\n
68<\/p>\n
142<\/p>\n
13<\/p>\n
136<\/p>\n
Fresno<\/p>\n
144<\/p>\n
81<\/p>\n
141<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
141<\/p>\n
Salinas<\/p>\n
149<\/p>\n
69<\/p>\n
149<\/p>\n
15<\/p>\n
144<\/p>\n
Bakersfield<\/p>\n
145<\/p>\n
104<\/p>\n
145<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
146<\/p>\n
Visalia<\/p>\n
146<\/p>\n
108<\/p>\n
146<\/p>\n
Table courtesy of KTLA. Source: RentCafe analysis of data from Yardi Matrix, Cost of Living Index, U.S. Census Bureau, Census Business Dynamics, County Health Rankings<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(FOX40.COM) \u2014 Sacramento is the third \u201cmost livable\u201d metropolitan area in California, a new report finds. The report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15578,71547,121,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-142584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-metro-area","12":"tag-rentcafe","13":"tag-sacramento","14":"tag-san-francisco"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}