City A or City B?
Decide with data.
Side-by-side metro and state comparisons across cost of living, rent, crime, wages, schools, childcare, and environment, all from official federal sources.
- Metro areas
- 387
- States covered
- 51
- Data dimensions
- 7
- Federal sources
- 6
- Cost of Living · BEA
- Rent · HUD
- Crime · FBI
- Wages · BLS
- Schools · NCES
- Childcare · DOL
- Environment · EPA
What the data shows
Affordability and pay pull against each other: across all 387 US metros, cheaper places tend to pay less and vice versa, only 8 rank in the top third on both at once.
- -0.77
- correlation, affordability vs. wages (−1 = perfect trade-off)
- 8 of 387
- metros top-third on cost AND wages
- 387
- metros scored on 7 dimensions
- 51
- states, same federal lens
Every dimension is a national percentile from an official federal dataset, then weighted into one Life Score. Compare any two places below.
The trade-off, visualised
Affordability vs pay across all 387 metros
Each dot is one metro, placed by how affordable it is (rightward) against how high its wages run (upward). The cloud drifts toward the bottom-right: the cheaper a place is, the less it tends to pay. The few gold dots clear the top third on both at once.
Compare Two Metros
Compare Two States
Popular Metro Comparisons
Popular State Comparisons
7 Data Dimensions
Cost of Living
Regional Price Parities by metro
Rent
Fair Market Rents by bedroom count
Crime
Crime rates per 100K population
Wages
Occupational salary data
Schools
Enrollment and student-teacher ratios
Childcare
Childcare cost estimates
Environment
Facilities, water systems, Superfund sites
City Comparison Guides
Learn how to compare cities objectively with federal data.
How to Compare Cities
A six-dimension framework for evaluation.
Understanding Metro Data
What each data dimension reveals and its limits.
Relocation Decisions
From shortlist to final choice with data.
Using Data for Relocation
8-factor framework with cost, crime, schools, jobs, and climate.
Fastest-Growing Metros
Top 15 metros ranked by population, jobs, and income growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is PlainCompare?
PlainCompare is a cross-portal city comparison tool that lets you compare U.S. metro areas across multiple dimensions, cost of living, crime rates, school quality, wages, rent, and more, using data from federal sources.
Where does the comparison data come from?
PlainCompare aggregates data from multiple federal agencies including the BEA (cost of living), FBI (crime), NCES (schools), BLS (wages), HUD (rent), and EPA (environment). Each data point links back to its source portal for deeper analysis.
How many metros can I compare?
PlainCompare covers 387 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. You can compare any two metros side by side or browse rankings across all metros.
Is PlainCompare free?
Yes, PlainCompare is completely free. No account or signup required. All comparison data comes from public federal sources and is presented without any paywall.
Browse the data
Explore metros, states, counties, and rankings across cost of living, wages, rent, safety, schools, childcare, and environment, all from federal sources.
Browse rankings
Cheapest metros, safest states, highest-paying jobs, best schools, ranked from official federal datasets.
MetrosAll 387 U.S. metros
Browse every metropolitan statistical area with composite scores across seven dimensions.
MethodologyHow we compute scores
Read about our methodology, source datasets, and limitations, every score is reproducible from public data.
How to use PlainCompare
Start broad, then narrow, the data is a filter for your shortlist, not the final word on where to live.
- Put two places head-to-head to see exactly where each one wins. Open the compare tool
- Scan the rankings to surface metros you might not have considered. Browse rankings
- Read the guides for a framework on weighing cost, safety, schools and wages. Comparison guides
Every score is metro- or state-level; conditions vary widely within a single place, so treat the data as a starting point.
About this data
How PlainCompare works, and why you can trust these numbers
What this site is
PlainCompare is a side-by-side city and metro comparison tool that combines cost of living, wages, crime, schools, childcare, and environmental data into a single composite Life Score. Every input metric comes from a specific federal agency's own published dataset, never from user submissions or estimates.
Editorial process
- Source. Pull each metric directly from its owning federal agency: cost of living from BEA, rent from HUD, crime from the FBI, wages from BLS, schools from NCES, childcare from the Department of Labor, and environment from the EPA.
- Verify. Each figure keeps its agency and vintage attached, so a reader can trace any Life Score input back to the original federal release.
- Publish. Compile a weighted composite Life Score per city/metro, and let readers compare any two locations side by side across every underlying metric.
Editorial independence & corrections
The PlainCompare editorial team is independent and accepts no payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement. Found an error or an outdated figure? File a correction via the contact page; we review corrections and publish updates with a visible revision note. See our methodology for the full Life Score weighting and source attribution.
Frequently asked
What is PlainCompare?
PlainCompare is a cross-portal city comparison tool that lets you compare U.S. metro areas across multiple dimensions, cost of living, crime rates, school quality, wages, rent, and more, using data from federal sources.
Where does the comparison data come from?
PlainCompare aggregates data from multiple federal agencies including the BEA (cost of living), FBI (crime), NCES (schools), BLS (wages), HUD (rent), and EPA (environment). Each data point links back to its source portal for deeper analysis.
How many metros can I compare?
PlainCompare covers 387 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States. You can compare any two metros side by side or browse rankings across all metros.
Is PlainCompare free?
Yes, PlainCompare is completely free. No account or signup required. All comparison data comes from public federal sources and is presented without any paywall.