Naperville has risen in the ranks on yet another best-of list.
The city ranked No. 3 on U.S. News & World Report’s 2025-26 list of the “Best Places to Live in Illinois.” It also placed at No. 76 on U.S. News’ broader “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” list this year, which measured cities across the country against one another on factors from education to cost of living.
To comprise the rankings, U.S. News evaluated more than 850 cities throughout the country. The top 250 made the nationwide list.
The appraisal was based on five core factors: quality of life, which evaulated education, air quality index and environmental index; value, which covered housing affordability and cost of living; desirability, which accounted for crime rates, weather temperateness, culture/leisure and average commute time; job market, assessing unemployment rate and median household income; and net migration, which measured the number of people moving to and away from each city.
U.S. News pulled from several different sources of data, including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau, FBI, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Applied Geographic Solutions.
Beating out Naperville on the Illinois rankings list were Arlington Heights and Buffalo Grove, which came in at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Palatine came in at No. 4, followed by Elgin at No. 5.
Nationwide, Johns Creek, Georgia, ranked No. 1; followed by Carmel, Indiana, at No. 2; Pearland, Texas, at No. 3; Fishers, Indiana, at No. 4; and Cary, North Carolina, at No. 5.
Naperville’s U.S. News standing comes after the city earlier this year landed on Livability.com’s 2025 Top 100 Best Places to Live list and — for the second time — was dubbed the No. 1 best city to live in America by Niche.
And it’s not just in holistic rankings that the city is punching above its weight. Naperville was also recently named the 186th most hitchhiker-friendly city in America by CashforCars.com, a nationwide vehicle-buying service.
Through a survey of more than 3,000 drivers across the country, CashforCars.com set out to find what areas in the U.S. are most amenable to hitchhiking. The survey resulted in a ranking of 200 U.S. cities in which locals are most likely to pull over for a hitchhiker.
Cheyenne, Wyoming, ranked first. Other Illinois cities to make the list were Rockford at No. 132, Joliet at No. 165 and Aurora at No. 195.
In its hitchhiking assessment of Naperville, CashForCars.com wrote: “Naperville is polished but not pretentious. People here were raised with good manners and strong values. Offering someone a ride might not be the norm, but it’s absolutely in their nature, especially if someone looks like they need it.”