Best City in America 2012; San Francisco Ranked #1

Another list ranking the best cities in America has arrived and San Francisco took the top honor.

Businessweek.com put out their ranking of the 50 best cities in 2012 which listed the foggy northern California city as number one.

Even though the weather isn't always sunny and the real estate can be a bit pricey, San Francisco's other qualities superseded.

"So glad, but also not surprised, that San Francisco did well on the best cities to live list," said Betsy Crabtree, publisher of San Francisco Arts Monthly, to Business Week.

While it's hard to claim what city is in fact the "best," Business Week says the list is just which cities were able to capture the top of what are considered the common variables a city should strive to achieve.

The rankings were compiled by Business Week and Bloomberg Rankings with data from Onboard Informatics and the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. They evaluated 100 of the country's largest cities with information on leisure activities, education, local economies, crime and environmental issues. This year Business Week spent higher emphasis on factoring leisure attributes such as restaurants, bars, museums and professional sports teams in each city.

With all those factors, San Francisco was put on the top of this year's list. The big coastal city is filled with fine dining, cultural centers, and a strong economy. The city placed at the top for education, sixth for leisure activities and within the top 20 for a growing economy and clean environment.  The city uses its diverse restaurants and bars and festivals to keep the locals happy and attract around 129,000 tourists a day, according to the San Francisco Travel Association.

Behind San Francisco on the list is Seattle (second), Washington D.C (third), Boston (fourth), and Portland (fifth).

As for the other big cities, New York, the biggest city in the U.S., took seventh place while Los Angeles took the bottom spot at fiftieth.