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

If you live in a city that you think your elected officials and community leaders aren't doing a good job in, you have two options. Either move to a city being run better than your current city or try to become a community leader to turn things around.

For those that live in this Wisconsin city, they can stay right where they are. A new study found that this city in Wisconsin is one of the best-run cities in the U.S.

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.

Wisconsin Is In The Top 25 Best Run Cities in the U.S.

WalletHub found that Madison is the 21st best-run city in America. Madison ranked 14th in Quality of City Services and 41st in Total Budget per Capita.

The only other Wisconsin city to make this list was Milwaukee. The biggest city in Milwaukee landed at #92. In Iowa, Cedar Rapids was at 35th and Des Moines landed at #80. In Illinois, Aurora was at #35 and Chicago landed at #137.