Gallery: 10 American cities with plenty of parks, low pollution and beautiful buildings

From California’s Gold Coast to Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and the sweeping plains of Wyoming, the United States and its many National Parks is home to some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. Nestled within many of these natural vistas are cities that accentuate the beauty through architecture and aesthetics.

A new brief from Living Cozy analyzes and ranks American cities “based on a number of factors including the quality of green parks, pollution and cleanliness levels, historic and beautiful buildings, boutique hotels and social media popularity,” according to the findings. “Surprisingly, some of America’s biggest and most famous cities performed poorly, achieving only a mediocre score overall.”

New York ranked 48th, while Los Angeles came in at 56th.

Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii tied for first with the most parks per 100,000 people at 28, followed by Portland, Ore., with 20. Lincoln, Neb., Anchorage, Alaska and Madison, Wisc., were ranked as having the best quality parks. New York, N.Y. had the most boutique hotels (10.33% of all hotels are boutique), followed by Baltimore, Md. (8.18%), and New Orleans, La. (8.11%). Los Angeles, Calif. was the most city with the most geotagged Instagram posts (69 million), followed by New York, N.Y. (64.7 million) and Chicago, Ill. (30.1 million). Winston-Salem, N.C. had the cleanest air, followed by Anchorage, Alaska and St. Petersburg, Fla. 

To compile the list, analysts reviewed the nation’s 100 most populous cities and combined data from the National Register of Historic Places, Tripadvisor, Numbeo, and Instagram.

“The percentage of boutique hotels was calculated by dividing the number of boutique hotels by the total number of hotels in the city,” the analysis says.

Taking all variables into account, the top ten cities that made the list can be found in the gallery above. Visit Living Cozy’s website to view the complete ranking of the top 20 cities, and a list of states that were ranked best for the factors.