Johns Creek City Hall
I was surprised to find another Asian American City that tops a US Best City List, especially one that wasn’t on any of the previous lists that I discussed in the past. This year, Johns Creek in Georgia was number 1 in US News and World Reports 2025 list of best small cities. It did even better than that – Johns Creek was the number 1 city for all cities of all sizes. Johns Creek reports its demographics as being 33.2% Asian.
Long time readers of Asian might remember us doing a story on Johns Creek. We wrote about white flight from the city as it grew steadily more and more Asian. This is something common to other heavily Asian American cities that are ranked highly. The book Tresspassers?: Asian Americans and the Battle for Surburbia talked about this phenomenon in Fremont.
You might wonder why some of the cities that were tops in the WalletHub list (Fremont, Irvine, and San Jose) did not make it onto US News and World Reports’ list. City selection criteria made the difference. US News and World Report’s selection methodology includes affordability and value. “Affordable” doesn’t really apply to Fremont, San Jose, or Irvine! In any case, a different Asian American City tops a Best City List!
