Concord named among best places to live

WFAE | By Woody Cain

Published April 3, 2026 at 2:46 PM EDT

Concord appears in a new list of a "Best Places to Live" ranking that's focused on identifying the top small- to mid-sized U.S. cities for 2026. The Charlotte Business Journal reports Livability.com released its annual 100 best places to live this week and put Concord at No. 24 the top rank for any North Carolina city.

Livability.com said it partnered with Applied Geographic Solutions to analyze more than 2,000 U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000 people using nearly 100 data points like economy, housing and cost of living, education and health.

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Woody Cain

Woody is a Charlotte native who came to WFAE from the world of NASCAR where he was host of NASCAR Today for MRN Radio as well as a pit reporter, turn announcer and host of the NASCAR Live pre race show for Cup Series races. Before that, he was a news anchor at WBT radio in Charlotte, a traffic reporter, editor of The Charlotte Observer’s University City Magazine, News/Sports Director at WEGO-AM in Concord and a Swiss Army knife in local cable television. His first job after graduating from Appalachian State University was news reporter at The Daily Independent in Kannapolis. Along the way he’s covered everything from murder trials and a national political convention to high school sports and minor league baseball.

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