The Business Journal's office, 1315 Van Ness Ave., is home to the largest painted postage stamp mural in the US. Photo by Ben Hensley

A recent study conducted by Dip’N Dive found that Fresno was the fourth best city to live in year-round among the 50 most populated cities in the United States.

Dip’N Dive is a scuba diving gear website.

The study used different factors in a formula to determine a score for each city. The factors were commute time, employment rate, crime rate, air quality, population, climate comfort index and the minimum annual income needed for comfortable living. 

Fresno ended up with a score of 69.6, just 5.3 points behind El Paso, who ranked first.

Despite being the fourth ranked city in the country, Fresno ranked second in California behind third place Oakland, which had a score of 70.3. 

Fresno’s best areas were commute time and minimum annual income needed for comfortable living, both of which were the best among the nine California cities that were studied.

With an average commute time of 21.6 minutes, Fresno had the sixth lowest time in the country. Tulsa, Oklahoma, had the lowest at 18.4, while New York City had the highest with an average commute time of 40.3 minutes.   

Fresno and Bakersfield were both at $42,400 for minimum annual income needed for comfortable living, which was much lower than other California cities, with the next closest being Sacramento at $56,800. 

Nationally, Tulsa yet again ranked first with a minimum income of $32,400.

San Francisco and San Jose were the two highest in this category at $108,800 and $100,800 respectively. 

Fresno’s worst performing category in comparison with the other California cities was the climate comfort index. With a rating of 8.0, Fresno was last in California. The rest of the country fared much worse in this category, as El Paso, Texas, was the only city outside of California with a rating of at least 8.0.