Where Missoula and Billings Rank on the List of Best-Run Cities

It seems like whenever we post any sort of article about Missoula on our social media pages it brings the comments from two different groups of opinion. There's the ones that will jump in with the positive thoughts, mention how great of a city Missoula is, and have nothing but good things to say. And then there's the other side.....where no matter what the story is about, the comments are all negative and talk about how great Missoula used to be but no longer is. This seems like one of those exact stories that leads to both types of commenters wanting to express their thoughts.

All of us have our opinion on the way that local decision makers run Missoula. Some agree with the way things operate, some don't. But it appears that outsiders seem to think that Missoula is a pretty well-oiled machine. WalletHub put together their list of 2021's Best- & Worst-Run Cities in America - and look at us making an appearance pretty dang high on the list!

We're not just talking about us getting a decent ranking out of like 20 places here! The list compared 150 U.S. cities and Missoula came in at #12. That's in the top 10% - not too shabby! And we weren't the only ones to rank high on the list - Billings came in at #17. I mean, that's pretty good.....but it's not #12 or anything.

If you really want to dig into the numbers and see where Missoula placed in education, health, safety, and more - you can see where every city in the study ranks in the different categories HERE.

The last year was as crazy as they come and city leadership was under the magnifying glass with every decision that had to be made. We might not all agree with some of those decisions - but I think we can agree that we would rather be at #12 on a list like this than somewhere near the bottom.