Elmira ranked No. 1 for most charming U.S. small cities

A North Carolina-based home improvement company recently set out to find the best, most charming small cities across the United States.

All Star Home looked at several parameters that reflect a variety of quality of life issues.

Who is No. 1? Elmira, New York. In fact, the top four cities in All Star Home’s ranking are from New York state, including Corning at No. 2, Utica in the third spot, and Binghamton in fourth place. The other New York community to make the list was Watertown at No. 10.

No cities from Pennsylvania were included.

The showing comes as no surprise to Elmira Mayor Dan Mandell.

“We’ve been doing a lot of things in Elmira. I’m glad to see we got recognized,” Mandell said. “It’s really good news for the city. There are a lot of positive things happening.”

Mandell pointed to revitalization of downtown Elmira, competitive home prices, and low overall crime numbers as top selling points for the city.

While some violent crimes draw a lot of attention, he said most of those crimes are targeted and not random, and overall Elmira is very safe.

How the rankings were determined

To come up with the ranking, All Star Home analyzed cities named in the 50 smallest TV designated market areas with a population of less than 100,000.

Analysts then compared those cities across four key metrics and graded each metric on a 100-point scale.

The metrics were community — including diversity by state, historic buildings by city, farmer’s markets within 30 miles, and high school football winning percentages — along with safety, affordable living, and education.

Binghamton topped the ranking in student-to-teacher ratio, followed by Corning. Utica ranked fourth in the community farmers markets category.

Sources for the data included the FBI Crime Data Explorer, Zillow Home Values, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, National Park Service, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

To see the full list of cities that were ranked and more information about the data, go to allstarhome.com/resources/ best-hometowns-in-america-ranked.

What happens next?

Achieving the top ranking on a national survey gives Elmira bragging rights, and can fuel marketing and promotion efforts, Mandell said.

“We have a public relations person who is doing things like putting something on our Facebook page. We’ll get together with (Chemung) county and the chamber of commerce to get the news out there,” he said.

“It’s all great news for the city,” Mandell added. “We want to show them this is a great place to live, work and raise a family.”