In a recent study released by personal finance website WalletHub, Mason was ranked the 15th best small city out of 1,268 cities across the United States in 2018. Mason is located about 22 miles northeast of downtown Cincinnati and is home to nationally ranked Mason City Schools, local breweries (there's been a boom here recently with the addition of Common Beer Company and Sonder Brewing), parks, restaurants, attractions (aka Kings Island) 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, quality of life and safety in order to rank them. According to the website, the data was evaluated by a panel of experts in fields such as public safety and urban development.
The five categories were broken up into 40 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.
Falling behind Wellesley, Massachusetts and just after Franklin, Tennessee, Mason ranked 29th in affordability, 76th in economic health, 301st in education and health, 502nd in quality of life and 101st in safety. Leawood, Kansas came in at No. 1 — but they don't have Kings Island, so there.
Mason has grown rapidly over the past 20 years with new housing, restaurants, offices and more contributing to its overall ranking.
