By: Justin Chaplin, Kimi Kaneshina, and Chris Salviati
The remote work revolution is here to stay. Although accelerated by the Coronavirus pandemic, remote work positions have been growing for some time. Today, 4 in 10 workers expect remote work flexibility post-pandemic, with the potential to spur a boom in migration.
There are already signs that remote workers are packing up their pricey San Francisco studio apartments and moving to cities with a lower cost of living. In a recent survey, we found that these remote workers are seeking more space at a lower cost in their next move, without sacrificing urban and natural amenities.
With these factors in mind, Apartment.List developed an index to find the best cities for remote workers that score highly in the following metrics:
- Overall satisfaction and prevalence of remote-friendly jobs
- Housing Affordability
- Access to Urban Amenities
- Access to Natural Amenities
The top 10 Cities for Remote Workers 2021 were:
- Provo, UT
- Fort Collins, CO
- Boise, ID
- Raleigh, NC
- Tempe, AZ
- Austin, TX
- Beaverton, OR
- Denver, CO
- Asheville, NC
- Ann Arbor, MI
Methodology
To better understand which markets are likely to heat up due to remote work, we’ve constructed a new index that ranks 230 cities across the country on the above factors.
For each of these four factors, we construct a sub-index that pulls from a variety of data sources, the details of which are described in the Best Cities for Remote Work methodology appendix. Our final index is constructed from these sub-indexes using the following weights:
- Remote-Friendliness: 40%
- Housing Affordability: 20%
- Natural Amenities: 20%
- Urban Amenities: 20%
To see a full breakdown of the data, download the spreadsheet here.
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Tucson ranked #59 on Best Cities for Remote Workers Index, out of 230 cities nationwide and Phoenix ranked #53.
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Tucson scored highest on our subindex for houing affordability, ranking #21.
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Tucson's weakest spot in our analysis was urban amenities, with a ranking of #175 on that subindex.
Check out the full analysis to learn more about the methodology and research behind this study.