The Best Places to Live in America

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Kiplinger’s magazine has just named its ten best cities to live in America, and San Francisco isn’t on the list. Washington, DC, however, is number three. Why, you ask? This year’s list is “all about jobs,” Kiplinger’s says, and DC is a great place to find and keep a job in a recession:

For better or worse, the federal government is big and getting bigger. And for the Washington, D.C., area economy, that means for the better. “The government just keeps spending and adding jobs,” says city spokesman Sean Madigan.

Only about one in eight workers in the Washington area—spanning D.C. proper and big chunks of adjoining Virginia and Maryland—are employed directly by the feds. Still, the government fuels nearby companies in almost every industry, especially law firms, lobbyists, and aerospace and defense companies.

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