The article details a Niche.com annual ranking:

"In the top 100, Jersey City ranked 78th on the Best Cities to Live in America, receiving an A- grade overall.

But it received a C+ in public schools, a C for crime and safety, a C for cost of living, and C- for housing.

Rents in the city are among the most expensive in the country, and in some buildings, tenants have had to fight large (sometimes illegal) rent increases.

The town got an A+ for diversity, A+ for nightlife, as well as an A for outdoor activities and an A for health and fitness. It got a B+ for "Good for families" and a B- for weather."

77 U.S. cities above jersey city does feel about right...

It’s almost comically bad.

I guess you’ve gotten 77 places you’ll be potentially moving to

These lists are always totally arbitrary.

1. There aren't 100 cities even worth talking about in the US, especially with passable transit or walkability.
2. I'd rather be in Jersey City than the 70 other car-infested, parking-lot-plagued, zero-food-diversity cities.

I do think the letter grades are accurate except for crime and housing.

Crime in JC is honestly not that bad for a city of it's size. There are cities this size with armed robberies, gang shootings, murders, etc everyday. Those happen here too but much more rarely. Should be like a B.

Housing is mixed. You can't really compare cities that are 90% suburban single family homes to a city like JC. Downtown JC is expensive but downtown is ONE part of JC. The rents elsewhere are cheaper than I've seen out in Morristown. Not to mention, regardless of complaints JC builds a ton of housing. We build the most in the country after Austin. Really their complaints were related to COL, which they have a grade for already. Housing w/o considering cost, but just availability, is pretty decent here.

All that said if you value nature and greenspace this ain't it (can list lots of cities that blow any east coast city out of the water). Otherwise, having been to lots of other cities, JC is pretty good overall. And not just downtown.

With these double digit rent increases, you're not wrong.

I agree that the list is arbitrary and can produce weird results, but I don't understand your comment about the other places being "car-infested, parking-lot-plagued, zero-food-diversity cities." I haven't looked at the whole list, but last year, I moved from Jersey City to Arlington, VA just outside of DC and #2 on the list. Arlington is very walkable and very transit friendly (four of the six DC Metro lines go through Arlington, and I live car-free without any issues). In many ways, I'd argue Arlington is actually more walkable than JC, and it's also much more bike friendly. There are plenty of diverse food options here too, both in Arlington and in neighboring DC, with the Arlington to DC trip comparable to the JC to Manhattan trip.

Obviously, DC is smaller than NYC, but it still has a lot going for it at a lower price point. Instantly dismissing the other cities as terrible because they aren't in the NYC area is a little silly.

I think you took me too literally. I'm actually from the DMV originally haha

I didnt say all other cities on the list are like that. Just that the majority of cities in the US are. Which I don't think is controversial to say.

The only cities outside of here that are balanced in transit and walkability are DC, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and if in the city center, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. Maybe also Atlanta or New Orleans but that's at the edge.

maybe petty theft/non-violent crime? we do have an issue with stealing here but I agree with violent crime point. It's not like we read an article every day of someone being killed, mugged, etc.

We do but stealing happens in every city. We are hardly unique for it, at least not among other cities of our size or larger. Porch piracy for example even happens in suburban towns let alone cities.

Tho generally that does mean I wouldn't give us an A. But I would say even petty crime wise we are doing better.