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

Our local political and community leaders should ensure our cities are run well. I mean, you hope that the people elected to balance budgets, make roads better, and do all of the other city things actually do them. It is subjective to people how well a city is being run, but having some data to back up a claim of people doing their jobs helps.

Luckily for one city in Iowa, 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.

Cedar Rapids Is In The Top 35 Best Ran Cities in the U.S.

WalletHub found that Cedar Rapids is the 35th best-run city in America. Cedar Rapids ranked 47th in Quality of City Services and 42nd in Total Budget per Capita.

The only other Iowa city to make this list was Des Moines. The capital of Iowa landed at #80. Across the river in Illinois, Aurora was 7 spots ahead of Cedar Rapids at #28. Chicago landed at #137.