Charleston chosen by Men’s Journal as “Best Place to Live in the South”

Happiness has a lot to do with being in the right place. If you’re like us, that means having all the amenities of a big city…without having to sit in traffic all morning. It means having all the familiarity of a small town…without having to go into exile. Here are the places in America that offer just that mix – small cities with metropolitan populations between 50,000 and 500,000 – ranked according to 34 variables, including cancer rates and cholesterol levels, amounts of precipitation and sunshine, air and water quality, the number of bars and bookstores per capita, the cost of living, and the proximity to major airports, parks, and even nuclear sites. A few things are clear:

(1) The West is the best; our top four towns are west of the Mississippi.
(2) It’s good to be a college town; more than half of our top 50 cities have major universities.
(3) Don’t discount a place just because it’s been hyped; towns like Charleston, South Carolina, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, have reputations that precede them, but the numbers back them up.
(4) If you’re already living in one of these places, get ready for a lot of visitors.

EDITOR’S PICK: THE SOUTH
Charleston, South Carolina

In 1989, the floodwaters and 135-mile-per-hour winds of Hurrican Hugo actually turned out to be a boon for Charleston. In the aftermath, neighborhoods that hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in decades were completely rejuvenated, speeding along a citywide renaissance-in-progress. But despite the facelift, this is still the Old South, where Spanish moss drips from live-oak trees and men wear seersucker. It’s the land of boiled peanuts, oyster roasts (a kind of Low Country lawn supper of oyster bushels and beer), and formal hospitality.

Which is not to say that you have to be a local to fit in. Chris Chavis, 35, passed through about a decade ago and liked it so much that he never left. Now he owns the Vintage Restaurant and Wine Bar downtown – part of the restaurant explosion that has accompanied the city’s renaissance. But Charleston isn’t just a service-based economy. Health care, for instance, is huge; the Medical University of South Carolina (with 8,200 employees), along with nine other hospitals, calls Charleston home.

With so much going right, it’s understandable that Charleston has also seen its downtown housing market skyrocket. Only minutes away, though, you can still get an early-20th-century bungalow for around $200,000 in previously blighted areas such as Hampton Park Terrace. Weekends, everybody take advantage of the water. Sailing is the local pastime, and the season peaks with the Rockville Regatta, when a thousand boaters tie up in Bohicket Creek to drink and watch the race. Saltwater fly-fishing is big in the bays and estuaries. And with Folly Beach, Seabrook, Sullivan’s Island, Kiawah, Wild Dunes, and the Isle of Palms nearby, you can always spend a day at the beach.