A new study shows Columbia to be in the top half of the best-run cities in the nation. The capital city ranked 67th out of a total of the 150 largest U.S. cities based on operating efficiency in a study conducted by personal finance website WalletHub.
Charleston ranked several spots ahead of Columbia, taking the 46th spot, according to the study.
Each city was given a quality of services score that was divided by the total budget per capita to construct a score per dollar spent index.
WalletHub used 35 metrics to grade financial stability, education, health, safety, economy and infrastructure and pollution.
Columbia and Charleston ranked as follows:
Columbia
Charleston
Financial stability
95
22
Education
143
Health
86
44
Safety
130
57
Economy
104
50
Infrastructure and pollution
53
24
Quality of services (Score)
122 (48.75)
23 (61.99)
Budget per capita
55
68
The top-ranked city was Nampa, Idaho, which had a quality service rank of 70 but a top-ranked total budget per capita.