One Of The Best Run Cities In The U.S. Is Right In Illinois

You hope that your city is being run really well. Residents elect local officials and give them duties to do just that. Balance budgets, make sure things are up to date, and not falling apart, and make sure that the city we live in is just a great place to live.

Luckily for one city in Illinois, they have those people and a new study is proving that the city is being run right.

Finding The Best & Worst Run Cities in the U.S.

A new study from WalletHub has come out titled 2024’s Best- & Worst-Run Cities in America. We're not talking about physically running, we're talking about making sure departments, governments, and programs put on by the city are running smoothly.

To find the best- and worst-run cities in the U.S., WalletHub compared 149 of the most populated cities across six key categories:

1. Financial Stability
2. Education
3. Health
4. Safety
5. Economy
6. Infrastructure & Pollution.

WalletHub evaluated those dimensions using 36 relevant metrics. They calculated an overall “Quality of City Services” score for each city based on its weighted average across all the metrics.

Finally, for each city, WalletHub divided the “Quality of City Services” score by the “Total Budget per Capita” (dollar amount) in order to construct a “Score per Dollar Spent” index. That is displayed as “Overall Rank” which is how they found the best- and worst-run cities.

Aurora Is In The Top 30 Best Ran Cities in the U.S.

WalletHub found that Aurora is the 28th best-run city in America. Cedar Rapids ranked 32nd in Quality of City Services and 40th in Total Budget per Capita.

The only other Illinois city to make this list was Chicago. The biggest city in Illinois landed at #137. Across the river in Iowa, Cedar Rapids was 7 spots behind Aurora at #35. Des Moines landed at #80.