13 US cities where people have the most free time, the best health, and well-paying jobs

Mikhail Mokrushin/Strelka Institute/Flickr

Finding a good work-life balance is easier is some places.

• Having a balanced lifestyle with equal parts work and leisure has a lot to do with where you live.
• Factors like the cost of housing, commute time, quality of health, and income vary from place to place.
• New research from MagnifyMoney suggests the best cities for a balanced lifestyle have shorter average commutes and high marks for income equality, among other things.

While living in one of America's major cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Miami may sound glamorous, it's no secret the lifestyle can be difficult. Long work hours, tedious commutes, and a high cost of living can take a toll on residents.

The best places to live in the US are actually places you might not expect, according to new data from personal finance website MagnifyMoney.

The site compared the US's top 50 metro areas, using a variety of indicators including average commute times, the cost of housing relative to income, the number of hours residents work in relation to how much they earn, the percentage of people in good health, and the cost of living compared to the national average.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top cities tended to have shorter average commutes and high marks for income equality. New York, which was dead-last in the rankings, scored abysmally on both those measures.

Here are the cities in the US where Americans live the most balanced lives: