The new US News "Best Places" rankings are out and the Albany metro is pegged as the 30th best place live among the nation's 100 largest metros. That's up from #36 last year.

The ranking folds together a bunch of different medians, rates, and other statistical whatnot to create the list -- stuff like employment market numbers, cost of living, crime rates, survey responses, and net migration. Here's the US News explainer on how it bakes the cake. A comprehensive measure of "best to place to live" for everyone it probably is not.

(The methodology seems to lean toward mid-size metros.)

The Albany area did well for the value, job market, and quality of life categories. It wasn't so great on net migration and desirability. (We got into the whole desirability thing last year -- it is very squishy... but also worth paying attention to.)

Upstate generally fared well in the rankings. Syracuse was #28 (!) (tagged as "up and coming"), Albany #30, Buffalo #33, and Rochester #39.

The top five nationally, from #1: Austin, Denver, San Jose, DC, and Fayetteville, Arkansas.

By the way: Here's a side-by-side comparison of Austin and Albany in the US News Best Places individual categories...

Earlier on AOA

+ New York State's population growth has stalled

+ The Capital Region is growing. Slowly.

