The D.C. area is No. 2 on a new list of “America’s Coolest Cities,” and Bethesda even got a top-20 ranking of its own.
Forbes Magazine released the rankings Thursday afternoon, and the D.C. area, with a 5.4 percent unemployment rate, more than 6,000 local restaurants and plenty of diversity and recreational opportunities, came in just behind Houston.
The area, which added more than 34,000 people to its ranks in 2011, also earned a score of 99 for arts and culture.
The study also ranked Bethesda, the hub of the Bethesda-Frederick-Gaithersburg metro division, as the nation’s 17th coolest city.
The top 10:
1. Houston
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Los Angeles
4. Dallas
5. Seattle
6. San Diego
7. Boston
8. Orange County, Calif.
9. San Francisco
10. New York
and
17. Bethesda
