2025 Compare Cities Rankings:
Madison, AL vs Santa Cruz, CA

#52 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Mid-Size Metro Areas)

#94 Most Popular Cities for the Holidays

#226 2005 Best Places to Live

#356 Best Green Cities

#18 Most Competitive Public Colleges

#27 Best Green Cities

#41 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Mid-Size Metro Areas)

#124 2005 Best Places to Live

My wife and I moved from Atlanta, GA area in 2016 when I retired. We have now lived in Huntsville for 4 years and now in Madison for almost 4 years. We were thinking  More

Low crime. Traffic not too bad even during peak times. Covert classim and racism. A stick with our own mentality. Not very diverse primarily just blacks and whites.  More

Madison is nice. The schools are excellent, which is why we chose to live here. The job market is good for anyone with an engineering degree or ex military, but for  More

I lived in the Santa Cruz area for 20 years. UCSC alum. Our kids were born there. There are wonderful things about Santa Cruz, but also many serious problems that we  More

I have been here for four generations! My kids are the fifth. I guess that should tell you how wonderful it is here, at least for us. It's so cool to have world class  More

I was born over the hill in San Jose area, and as a kid I loved coming over to the boardwalk. Santa Cruz has always been and always will be a town of diversity,  More