WhereToLive.us

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau: City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2025, table SUB-IP-EST2025-ANNRNK for the large-city launch rank and SUB-IP-EST2025-POP for all-state starter and state coverage city profiles. Used for rank where available, 2020 estimates base, 2024 estimate, and 2025 estimate.

U.S. Census Bureau ACS Summary File: 2020-2024 ACS 5-year Detailed Tables B01001, B01002, B01003, B08301, B08303, B15003, B17001, B19013, B23025, B25002, B25003, B25064, B25077, and B28002. Used for age, young-adult share, population, commute modes and time, education, poverty, income, employment, housing occupancy and tenure, rent, home value, and household broadband context where a Census place row matches.

U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer Files: 2025 National Places and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas files. Used for representative city coordinates and ZIP/ZCTA nearest-catalog-city search.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Local Area Unemployment Statistics state series, retrieved through the public BLS API. Used as a state-level job-market proxy for the young-grad score.

FBI Crime Data Explorer: Planned city and agency crime-rate source. The live site does not publish city crime scores until a stable FBI/local-agency pull is verified and caveated.

U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard and NCES: Planned higher-education, program, cost, completion, and earnings layers for graduate-school and credential checks.

Next planned source layers: HUD fair market rent, live listing/rent sources, BLS MSA employment and wage statistics, NOAA climate normals, NCES education records, College Scorecard, CMS healthcare data, FCC broadband data, FBI/local crime data, and state/local tax sources.