2025 Compare Cities Rankings:
Merced, CA vs Athens-Clarke County, GA

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

#289 Best Green Cities

#328 2005 Best Places to Live

#34 2005 Best Places to Live

#50 Most Competitive Public Colleges

#89 America's Most (and Least) Stressful Cities (117 Smallest Metro Areas)

#94 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Smallest Metro Areas)

#112 Best Green Cities

Merced is totally slept on - you want a little bit of everything CA has to offer, at a fraction of the price of other CA cities? Merced is the place to go. The town  More

Good place to live. More affordable than most of california. The city is growing and there is alot of business and growth here. Moved from the Bay area years ago and  More

Great place to live. Lots of progress and changes coming to the city. Great place to raise a family. UC Merced is expanding and businesses are investing. Downtown is  More

Athens is really a jewel hidden in & of itself. This place had so much stuff; it's constantly changing. They have city transit. They're expanding the highway and  More

I absolutely love Athens, Ga. I grew up traveling the world, the first place that I have ever lived in for more than 5 years in a row was Athens, Ga. I cam here in 96  More

The "Old South" is alive and well, thing about Baptists is they look like real people. Also come late Spring several religious groups feel they have the right to knock  More