In a recent study released by personal finance website WalletHub, Mason was ranked the 19th best small city out of 1,200 cities across the United States.
Mason is located about 22 miles northeast of downtown Cincinnati and is home to nationally ranked Mason City Schools, local breweries (16 Lots, Common Beer Company, Sonder Brewing), parks, restaurants, attractions, Kings Island (now home to Orion, one of only seven giga coasters in the world) and more.
The study included cities with populations that fell between 25,000 and 100,000 and gathered information about each city's affordability, economic health, education and health (including recent COVID cases), quality of life and safety in order to rank them.
The five categories were broken up into 43 metrics which were weighted with 20 points total for each group. The metrics included data such as median household income, share of population living below poverty level, high school graduation rate, average commute time, violent-crime rate, etc.
Overall, Mason ranked 45th in affordability, 69th in economic health, 200th in education and health, 533rd in quality of life and 55th in safety.
Sammamish, Washington came in at No. 1 — but they don't have Kings Island, so there. The worst? Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Here are the top 20 best small cities, according to WalletHub's ranking:
Mason has grown rapidly over the past 20 years with new housing, restaurants, offices and more contributing to its overall ranking.
