Fayetteville makes best and worst lists for 2020

With weeks left in 2020, there’s still a chance for Fayetteville to be named to an organization’s best or worst list. 

But what about the lists that have already been released this year? 

Do you remember on which topics Fayetteville has been named the best city or the worst city? 

Here’s a look back. 

Top North Carolina city for safety

Website safety.com ranked Fayetteville No. 8 on its list of top 25 safe cities in North Carolina. 

Researchers for the website based data on public safety crimes that included violent, property and hate crimes and evaluated financial and socioeconomic factors including household income, average rent and health insurance. 

Wallet Hub also ranked Fayetteville as No. 74 out of 182 cities across the U.S. and No. 6 out of North Carolina cities on its November list of safest cities in the U.S.

Data was based on 42 key indicators of safety that included COVID-19 cases in the past seven days per 100,000 residents,  assaults per capita and unemployment rates. 

Fayetteville made lists this year as being one of the top North Carolina cities for public safety.

Top 50 mid-sized city for diversity

In February, finance website WalletHub released its list of “Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.”

More than 50 cities across the U.S. were examined based on ethnicity and race, language and birthplace as key indicators of ethnic diversity. 

Fayetteville was ranked No. 50 as a mid-sized city for diversity and No. 122 out of all 500 cities across the country, and No. 5 in North Carolina behind Charlotte, Durham, High Point and Cary. 

Niche, a school, company and neighborhood data review site, also ranks Fayetteville at No. 47 on its list for diversity out of 228 cities based on Census data using the resident facial diversity index, resident income diversity index and resident age diversity index. 

Fayetteville, which hosts the annual International Folk Festival, was named as one of the top 50 diverse cities in the nation.

Top Southern city for women working in Science, Technology, Engineer and Math

In March, commercial real estate website CommercialCafe recently released its ranking of the top U.S. cities for women in STEM based on research from the National Girls Collaborative Project that looks at the percentage of women in those jobs. 

CommercialCafe looked at how many women were in STEM jobs in each city, the median incomes of those female employees and the local unemployment rate of women.

Fayetteville ranked No. 4 in the Southeast on the list, with CommercialCafe estimating about 31% of STEM positions are filled by women who make an average income of $74,714.

Fayetteville has been named a top city for women working in Science, Technology, Engineer and Math career fields.

Top city in the country for clean air

The American Lung Association listed Fayetteville, Sanford and Lumberton as tied for the No. 1 cleanest metropolitan areas in the country for ozone and 23-hour particle pollution in its report that it released in April. 

Technically, the association did not rank cities that earned the same score, but it did name the Fayetteville area along with about 49 other metropolitan statistic areas as the best in the country, as opposed to the worst. 

The report ranked the metropolitan areas based on ozone and particle pollution during 2016, 2017 and 2018 and data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Fayetteville area has been ranked by the American Lung Association as one of the top areas in the nation for air quality.  Chemours has a thermal oxidizer at its facility near Fayetteville to burn PFAS from Chemours' air emissions.

Top 100 list

Fayetteville ranked No. 80 out of 182 cities for WalletHub’s December list of top cities for singles based on the population that is single, the number of online dating opportunities and the average price for a two-person meal.

Worst place to find a job

In January, WalletHub ranked Fayetteville as one of the worst cities in the nation to find a job.

Fayetteville was ranked No. 181 on the list out of 182 cities. 

WalletHub used 31 indicators for its rankings, which included job opportunities, employment growth and monthly average starting salary. 

Despite multiple organizations hosting job and career fairs throughout the year, WalletHub has ranked Fayetteville as one of the worst cities in the nation for jobs.

Top 15 city in the nation with sexually transmitted diseases

In July, InnerBody Research released its list of top 100 cities with sexually transmitted diseases in the country based on case statistics and October 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

For its “Top 100 Rankings,” the website only included city metro areas with an estimated population of 150,000 or more.

The website ranked Fayetteville as No. 12 on its list for having the highest rate of STDs, with 1,559 STD cases per 100,000 population, 3,646 cases of chlamydia, 1,486 cases of gonorrhea and 29 cases of syphilis among 332,300 residents.

Fayetteville is ranked as one of the worst cities in the nation for sexually transmitted diseases.

Top 10 worst mid-sized real estate market

In August, WalletHub placed Fayetteville on its list of worst mid-sized real estate markets, placing Fayetteville at No. 91 out of 100 other mid-sized cities and 271 overall out of 300 cities across the country. 

Data was based on 24 metrics that included median home-price appreciation, home sales turnover rate and job growth.

Fayetteville ranked 252 in median home-price appreciation, 175 for job growth rate, 138 for the number of unsold homes owned by banks and 16 for house price as a percentage of income. 

WalletHub has ranked Fayetteville as one of the worst places for real estate.

Worst place for people with disabilities

In September, WalletHub released its list of best and worst places for people with disabilities. Fayetteville was No. 166 out of 182 cities, or the 16th worst place. Greensboro and Winston- Salem were also ranked among the worst. 

WalletHub compiled its rankings based upon 34 indicators which included physicians per capita, the rate of workers with disabilities and park accessibility.

Fayetteville is ranked as one of the worst places in North Carolina for people with disabilities, according to a WalletHub analsyis.

Among WalletHub’s other lists released this year: 

Fayetteville ranked No. 244 out of 256 for fastest growing city, No. 60 out of 182 as a sinful city and No. 144 out of 182 cities as a happiest place to live.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at [email protected] or 910-486-3528. 

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