The Economist Intelligence Unit says that if you must live in the United States, Washington, D.C., is the place to go.
The EIU folks rank cities by sprawl, green space, cultural assets, pollution and more in an attempt to come up with an impartial ranking of the best cities to live. (Interestingly enough, the EIU's rankings don't take into account availability of jobs, cost of living, etc.)
No U.S. city cracked the top ten, which were dominated by metropolises in the EU and East Asia. But coming in at #14 was D.C., higher than Chicago (15), New York (16), Los Angeles (17) and San Francisco (18).
This was a combination of the Economist's usual
Liveability Rankings and a
new metric that took into account the spatial characteristics of cities, as mentioned above.
Read more
here.