What our city score actually measures
Every nomad site publishes a single city score and none of them tell you what it weights. Ours is no different in construction and this page is the exception in disclosure: we ran the correlation between our headline score and each of the six sub-ratings across all 500 cities, and the answer is not what the score implies.
The city score correlates +0.84 with nightlife and +0.02 with safety. In other words, our score is very largely a measure of how lively a city is, and it is essentially indifferent to how safe it is.
Our city score correlates +0.84 with the nightlife and social rating, +0.49 with connectivity, +0.37 with walkability, -0.24 with air quality, +0.02 with safety and -0.01 with the annual weather rating.
Read plainly: it is a liveliness index with a connectivity component. If you are choosing on safety, air quality or climate, our headline number is not measuring what you are looking for and you should ignore it and read the columns.
| Rating | Correlation with our city score | Correlation with cost |
|---|---|---|
| Fun & nightlife | +0.84 | +0.35 |
| Internet speed | +0.49 | +0.69 |
| Walkability | +0.37 | +0.43 |
| Safety | +0.02 | +0.47 |
| Weather | -0.01 | -0.22 |
| Air quality | -0.24 | +0.26 |
How strongly each sub-rating moves with the headline city score across all 500 cities, and with monthly cost. Pearson correlation.
Why nightlife dominates
This is not a bug in the weighting so much as an artefact of what a nomad city score is built from. The inputs that feed it — community size, coworking density, events, English-speaking services, flight connections, the presence of other remote workers — are all downstream of the same underlying thing: whether a city is a place where people gather. That produces a number that tracks social density almost by construction.
The corollary is that quiet, safe, well-run, well-connected cities score badly. Keflavík in Iceland rates 4.9 for safety — among the highest in the dataset — and scores 3.2 overall. Nizwa in Oman rates 4.8 and scores 3.3. Nothing is wrong with either city. The score is simply not asking the question those cities would answer well.
| City | Country | Score | Nightlife | Safety | Air | Cost/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lisbon | Portugal | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 3.7 | $2,100 |
| Chiang Mai | Thailand | 4.5 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 2.6 | $1,000 |
| Canggu | Indonesia | 4.5 | 4.7 | 3.7 | 3.9 | $1,300 |
| Bangkok | Thailand | 4.5 | 4.6 | 3.8 | 2.8 | $1,400 |
| Valencia | Spain | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 3.9 | $1,900 |
| Barcelona | Spain | 4.5 | 4.8 | 3.9 | 3.6 | $2,400 |
| Da Nang | Vietnam | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 3.7 | $1,000 |
| Buenos Aires | Argentina | 4.4 | 4.8 | 3.8 | 3.5 | $1,100 |
| Medellín | Colombia | 4.4 | 4.5 | 3.2 | 3.3 | $1,250 |
| Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia | 4.4 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.3 | $1,300 |
Our ten highest-scoring cities. Note how tightly the nightlife column tracks the score column, and how loosely safety and air do.
The negative correlation with air quality
The most uncomfortable figure in the table is -0.24 — our city score moves against air quality. Higher-rated cities have, on average, slightly worse air.
The mechanism is straightforward once you see it. The cities that score highest are large, dense, busy and often in developing economies with heavy traffic and nearby agriculture or industry. The cities with the cleanest air are small, remote and quiet, which is exactly the profile the score penalises. Bangkok scores 4.5 with air at 2.8; Chiang Mai scores 4.5 with air at 2.6. Both sit at the very top of our list.
What the score is genuinely good for
It answers one question well: if I arrive somewhere alone, how quickly will I have a working life and some people to spend time with. That is a real question and for a first-time nomad it might be the most important one. A high-scoring city is a low-risk landing.
It answers almost nothing else. It does not tell you whether the city suits a particular season, whether the time zone works for your clients, whether you can afford it, whether the air is breathable in March, or whether you would still like it in month eight. Those are all in the columns, and the columns are why the city pages exist.
The practical instruction, then: use the score to sort, never to decide. Sort by it, take the top thirty, and then throw it away and read the four columns that actually bear on your situation.
Common follow-up questions
What does the timedatelive city score measure?
Across our 500 cities it correlates +0.84 with the nightlife and social rating and only +0.02 with safety. It is best understood as a liveliness and community-density index with a connectivity component.
Why do safe cities score badly?
Because the inputs behind a nomad city score — community size, coworking density, events, flight connections — all track social density. Quiet, safe, well-run cities score low not because anything is wrong with them but because the score is not asking a question they answer well.
Why does the score correlate negatively with air quality?
At -0.24 it moves slightly against clean air, because the cities that score highest are large, dense and busy, while the cleanest air is found in small remote places the score penalises.
Should I choose a city by its score?
Use it to sort, not to decide. It answers "how fast will I have a working life and some people here" well. It says nothing useful about season, time zone, affordability or air.