Pierre and Sioux Falls have, again, made the list of the top 25 small and large cities, respectively, in the AARP Livability Index for 2024. Pierre came in 15th for towns with 5,000 to 24,999 residents and Sioux Falls was 14th among cities with a population of 100,000 to 499,999. Pierre has a Livability Index score of 67, which is down from 69 in 2023. Sioux Falls received the same score it did last year– a 63. AARP South Dakota State Director Erik Gaikowski says a livable community is a place for people of all ages. It’s a place that has the housing and transportation options and community features that people need so they can safely thrive regardless of age, income or physical abilities. Launched in 2015, the AARP Livability Index platform scores livability by using more than 50 national data sources across seven categories: housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement and opportunity. The tool measures every city, county and town against 61 indicators of livability, ranging from monthly housing costs to environmental pollution, opportunities for social connections to the presence of age-friendly community plans. It aims to inform and encourage residents, local advocates, researchers, and policymakers to take action to make their communities great places to live for people of all ages. Users can search the website by address, ZIP code, or community to find an overall or category score, identify challenges in their community and compare their neighborhood to others across performance benchmarks. Here are some other rankings for South Dakota cities. 2023 numbers are in parentheses. Spearfish 63 (57) Tea 62 (60) Yankton 62 (60) Madison 62 (61) Dell Rapids 62 (61) Brookings 61 (59) Mitchell 61 (63) Webster 61 (60) Watertown 60 (61) Brandon 60 (58) Harrisburg 60 (58) Sturgis 59 (56) Milbank 58 (60) Lemmon 56 (61) Custer 56 (60) Aberdeen 54 (58) Rapid City 53 (54)