How New Orleans Beat Out Every Other Louisiana City in a National Ranking

(NEW ORLEANS, LA) - Louisiana landed one city in the top 25 of the country this year, and it's the one you'd expect. New Orleans came in at No. 23 on Resonance Consultancy's 2026 America's Best Cities ranking, the only Louisiana city to crack the Top 100. Here's what the ranking measures, why New Orleans placed where it did, and where the rest of the state stood.

How the America's Best Cities Ranking Works

The list, published at WorldsBestCities.com, is now in its 10th year and ranks the Top 100 U.S. cities on three pillars: livability (daily quality of life), lovability (culture, food, and how much people want to visit), and prosperity (jobs and economic strength). Each pillar blends hard data with a national perception survey of more than 2,000 households conducted with Ipsos.
This year the study expanded the number of cities included. For the first time, Resonance evaluated all 393 U.S. metro areas, not just the biggest ones. At the top, little changed: New York held No. 1, with Los Angeles second and Chicago third.

Brandon Bell, Getty Images

Why New Orleans Ranked No. 23

New Orleans scores on the strength of its culture. The city ranks 18th in the country on lovability, the pillar that captures restaurants, music, nightlife, and visitor pull, which lands it well inside the Top 25 overall even though its prosperity rank sits much lower at 54th and its livability at 32nd.

Get our free mobile app

The report singles out New Orleans as a genuine success story. It was one of only 11 cities in the nation to improve its national perception across all three pillars at the same time over the past three years. Resonance notes that the city generates visitor desire at levels five to ten times higher than its scores as a place to work, and that this love as a destination is starting to lift how people see it as a place to live.

What's Driving the Momentum

New Orleans has leaned into its riverfront and its hospitality, and its food scene keeps earning national recognition including recent Michelin awards for restaurants in the city. That kind of visitor experience, the report argues, works like a talent pipeline: people who fall for the city on a trip start to imagine living there. For a city whose brand has always run on culture, that's the engine doing the work.

Read More: New Orleans Michelin Restaurants

Did Any Other Louisiana Cities Make the List?

Not this year. New Orleans is the lone Louisiana city in the 2026 Top 100. Baton Rouge, which appeared at No. 94 in the 2025 edition, did not return to the list this year, and Lafayette, Shreveport, and Lake Charles did not place either.

Resonance also released a separate ranking of America's 100 Best Small Cities for metros under 500,000, and no Louisiana city landed there. So for 2026, the state's showing comes down to one strong result, and New Orleans carried it at No. 23.