Georgia
Study: 2 north Georgia cities among 100 best places to live in the U.S.
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – For 12 years now, Livability.com has published its Top 100 Best Places to Live list — and in 2025, Roswell and Athens made the cut.
The website combed through data in partnership with Applied Geographic Solutions, a demographics database, to choose the best U.S. cities with a population between 75,000 and 500,000. But the 2025 edition doesn’t list the cities from 1 to 100. Instead, it has an interactive sorting system, so users can pick and choose which features are most important to them.
Livability.com Editor-in-Chief Amanda Ellis said this year’s list celebrates small and midsize cities where Americans can thrive despite record inflation and a turbulent workforce.
“It’s the only list out there truly honing in on affordability, lauding the amazing, accessible cities across the country other than our large U.S. metros which often get more recognition,” she said.
Roswell, which earned an overall LivScore of 838 out of 1000, scored the highest out of any city for its economy, which is flush with jobs in the healthcare, technology and manufacturing sectors. It also ranked high for its hospitals and amenities.
“With a prime location close to the city, a nearby airport and easy access to the Chattahoochee River, Roswell offers a combination of history, charm and modern amenities, including top-notch health care facilities and list-worthy schools, attractive neighborhoods and plenty of outdoor fun,” Livability.com said in its synopsis.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Metro Atlanta city named one of the best places to live in the U.S. by study
This year marks Roswell’s second time making the list. It ranked No. 12 in 2024.
Meanwhile, Athens hopped on the list for the first time in 2025, earning a LivScore of 646. It scored well for its outdoor environment and public transportation options.
“Athens is alive with Southern charm and a lively arts scene,” Livability.com said. “This vibrant college town is brimming with historic architecture, a thriving music scene and a whole lot of school pride.”
Click here to see Livability’s Top 100 Best Places to Live list for 2025.
Copyright 2025 WANF. All rights reserved.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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