This Sunday, the JDD revealed the list of French cities where life is good, produced by the association of the same name.
Saint-Étienne is still in a good position in the category of towns with more than 2,000 inhabitants, at the 31e place out of 34,820 municipalities, even if, from year to year, it plummets in the ranking. Saint-Étienne has lost 5 places compared to last year and, since 2020 when the town was ranked 13th, it has fallen 18 places…
Saint-Étienne still better ranked than Lyon
There is nevertheless reason to rejoice since, of the 323 municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants in the Loire, Saint-Étienne is the best ranked and the only one to appear in the top 50.
It also holds its own among the major French cities, appearing in 15th place out of 40. Saint-Étienne is overtaken by Angers (1st), Rennes (8th), Nice (13th) or Bordeaux (27th), but it is , on the other hand, better than Lyon (77th), Paris (91st) or even Marseille (129th).
Six other Loire municipalities in the top 500
In the top 500 towns with more than 2,000 inhabitants where life is good, six other municipalities in the Loire also appear: Roanne (212th), Firminy (215th), Saint-Chamond (235th), Roche-la-Molière ( 324th), Montbrison (404th) and Saint-Genest-Lerpt (466th). A nice score for the department, but it’s still a little worse than last year since La Ricamarie and Villars left the list.
This year, the association Towns and villages where life is good used 198 different criteria to decide between the municipalities, all from official sources such as INSEE. They are divided into ten categories: quality of life, safety, health, transport, shops and services, environmental protection, education, solidarity, sports and leisure, real estate attractiveness. And, new for this 2023 edition, the ranking also takes into account the air quality of the municipalities, but also their proximity to polluted industrial sites.
