Compare U.S. cities before you decide where to move.

You answer questions about affordability, weather, work, household needs, transportation, and daily-life preferences. WhereToThrive scores each metro against those answers and shows why a city ranked where it did.

Yes. The quiz, results, city pages, and basic report are free. Optional deeper reports may come later, but the core city-matching workflow does not require a credit card.

The current dataset covers 250 U.S. metro areas, including large regions, mid-size metros, and smaller markets with enough public data to compare.

Yes. Create a free account to save relocation profiles, revisit result snapshots, favorite or exclude cities, keep notes, and return to saved comparisons as your priorities change.

The site uses public sources such as Census ACS, HUD Fair Market Rents, NCES, NOAA, Census Business Patterns, and BLS, plus project formulas where direct data is not available. Walkability is a commute-and-density estimate. Rent is labeled as ACS median gross rent, with HUD Fair Market Rent shown separately as a public benchmark. Treat results as a research starting point and verify neighborhoods, listings, schools, taxes, and commute routes locally.