Homesnacks just released its 2026 rankings of Washington's best places to live, crunching Census, FBI, and Zillow data across 122 cities. But flip to the list of the ten best cities east of the Cascades, and the Wenatchee Valley shows up twice. East Wenatchee sits just behind it at number seven, coming in at 60th overall. College Place, near Walla Walla, took third. Wenatchee and East Wenatchee didn't need Seattle-level wealth to earn their spots.