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Top 10 Cities Where Lazy Folks Can Thrive

OK, so maybe you work your butt off on the job. Perhaps you’re generally viewed as a paradigm of energy, motion, and initiative. In fact, you might be simply skyrocketing through life. Congrats! But even among the most accomplished of us, there’s often an alter ego someplace deep inside, striving to (sluggishly) burst forth: the hidden sloth.

Sometimes it’s just great to be lazy.

After all, who doesn’t love crashing on the couch after work and ordering in some cevapi from the local Serbian place?  Or maybe chilling at an Imax showing of “Batman v. Superman II: The Reconciliation” while a qualified pro cleans every square foot of your place? And while we’re on the subject: Why the heck spend the weekend walking your Pomeranian when you could be baking at the beach?

Modern life has you covered!  As sci-fi icon Robert Heinlein put it a half-century ago: “Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”

And some cities elevate the business of inactivity to fine art forms. This week, the realtor.com® data analysts eased themselves off their spring hammocks and set out to discover the American cities where people appreciate a healthy work-life balance that’s seriously tilted toward “life.” We considered these criteria in identifying the modern cities where you can live large and lazy:

1. Number of restaurants that offer delivery
2. Number of day spas and massage therapy centers
3. The percentage of homes on realtor.com that have a hot tub, sauna, or steam room
4. Average hours of sleep
5. Average work hours per week
6. Average cost of a cleaning service
7. The number of available service apps such as Handy (housecleaning), Instacart (grocery shopping), Washio (laundry), Luxe (parking the car), Wag! (dog walking), Postmates (takeout and grocery delivery), and TaskRabbit (running errands)

Got it? Carpe diem. Let’s stroll over to our results:

1. Boca Raton, FL

With an average temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit and 231 sunny days out of the year, it’s all too easy to be a beach bum in Boca Raton. The southern Florida city known for its wealthy and polished lifestyle is sometimes dubbed “the Beverly Hills of Florida.” And despite its perennial status as a punch line in “Seinfeld”-esque routines about geriatrics, the place has a surprisingly young and chill vibe.

In Boca Bash, there’s the massive full-day, music-drenched floating party on the Boca Inlet.  Feel like going to the gym? No, you don’t. If you want to exercise, take a stroll in one of the area’s many malls—Town Center Mall, Mizner Park, and Royal Palm Plaza—instead. You’re welcome.

2. Orlando, FL

Lazing around in Orlando has a definite foodist vibe. Around 20% of Orlando’s 3,000-plus restaurants offer delivery, one of the highest rates in the country—that’s not including the nearly 300 restaurants available on GrubHub, an online food delivery service.

If you do want to make an effort to go out, you can roll out of bed on a Sunday afternoon to enjoy French toast at your brunch joint of choice. Orlando has one of the country’s highest number of brunch locations per capita listed on Yelp.com.

3. Boulder, CO

A New York Times article once referred to Boulder as “25 square miles surrounded by reality” for its progressive politics and laid-back lifestyle. A typical Boulder resident puts just 34 hours into work per week—4.4 hours less than the national average—and sleeps 7.12 hours per night, one of the longest in the nation. Are they all slackers? Not necessarily.

Take a look at the city’s top employers: IBM, University of Colorado, Ball Aerospace, and a host of tech startups. Software engineers can often telecommute and work in their pajamas—the perfect job for lazy but productive people.

4. Las Vegas, NV

Built to satiate people’s desires, Las Vegas’ endless buffet of lavish meals, shops, and every imaginable form of entertainment makes it heaven for the indolent. In addition, the myriad spa services allow you to escape the stressful sound of slot machines and slip into a calm state of Zen-like bliss. Plus, who has the strength to do anything when it’s 100 degrees in the desert?

5. Miami, FL

Surprisingly, Miami is the big city where you can most easily afford to be lethargic. For those who don’t want to sweat to get their house in shape, the average cost of a house cleaner’s visit is $136, which is $35 cheaper than in New York City. Don’t want to sweat a drive? UberX, the budget option on Uber, is just 85 cents per mile here, half the price of NYC.

6. Provo, UT

Time flows at a different speed in Provo, considering an average worker there logs only 30.5 hours a week. Could it be that local employers—including five billion-dollar companies (Vivint, Qualtrics, Ancestry.com, Novell, and Nu Skin)—don’t care about output? Hmm, not likely. Or that well-educated workers, many from Brigham Young University, are too smart to need 40 hours to finish work? Perhaps the per-hour productivity boost is a direct result of the city’s blazingly fast Google Fiber internet service—only the third place in the U.S. to get it. Could it be the Mormon faith that discourages working on Sunday? There has to be a reason to explain the low 3.4% local unemployment rate.

7. Berkeley, CA

The epitome of a laid-back college town, one of the things that defines Berkeley is its seemingly endless number of cafes filled with smart people—many of them working, but in their own way and at their own pace. Some cafes offer organic Blue Bottle coffee, one has a huge collection of board games, and most offer a cozy environment to relax. Yes, there’s Uber and Lyft and all that, but you can also just amble aimlessly around town—there are 136 pedestrian paths. The university provides stable employment for the locals, with good wages and reasonable work hours.

8. Ann Arbor, MI

Contrary to the common stereotype of a college town consisting of students who study late and party even later, the residents of Ann Arbor (home of the University of Michigan) get 6.99 hours of sleep a night, well above the national average. Of course, there are many permanent residents of Ann Arbor as well, but they benefit from the same citywide amenities. And since college students aren’t big on the whole cooking thing, many of the varied restaurants around town offer delivery. The city also has a wonderful array of quaint bookshops for stocking up for those many lazy, rainy days.

9. Pasadena, CA

Just 10 miles away from the newly hip downtown core of Los Angeles, Pasadena feels like another world. Proud of its historic roots, the laid-back town has a downright old-timey allure that’s the polar opposite of L.A.’s constant scramble up the social ladder. But don’t write off the locals as totally lazy—Pasadena is home to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the prestigious California Institute of Technology, aka Caltech.

10. San Francisco, CA

If necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is sometimes its father, says business author Stephen Shapiro. That productive laziness is probably best exemplified in San Francisco, where a slew of do-it-for-you apps originated. The difficulty of hailing a taxi, not to mention the hassle of driving in the city, inspired Uber; the outrageous amount of time it takes to find parking spots inspired on-demand parking service Luxe; the everyday drudgery of going to the supermarket led to delivery services Postmates and Instacart.

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