13 Of America's Least Affordable Small Cities Are In CA

CALIFORNIA — Thirteen of America’s 20 least affordable small cities are in California, according to a recent analysis by WalletHub.

The personal finance website ranked over 1,300 cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 people to determine the nation’s best small cities based on 45 livability indicators across five categories, including affordability.

The three cities ranked lowest in the affordability category — Isla Vista, West Hollywood and Bell Gardens — were all in California.

Huntington Park, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica were determined by WalletHub to be the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-least affordable cities. Slots 10-13 were filled by Maywood, Bell, San Luis Obispo and National City, while Santa Barbara was No. 17. Closing out the bottom 20 were Imperial Beach at 19th and Hawthorne at 20th.

The small city in California that was found to be the most affordable was Beaumont, although it did not make the top 300 of the over 1,300 cities ranked nationwide, instead coming in at 302.

The affordability category considered median household income, cost of living, homeownership rate, housing costs and the share of households with severe housing cost burden, according to WalletHub. Three of the five cities with the lowest homeownership rates — Bell Gardens, West Hollywood and Isla Vista — were in California, as were two of the five cities with the highest housing costs.

In WalletHub's overall livability ranking, which also took into account the categories of economic health, education and health, quality of life, and safety, Los Altos was the highest-ranked California city at 42nd out of 1,318. Isla Vista came in last in the overall ranking as well as in the affordability and economic health categories.