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Philly makes a best-of list: It's about time

Real Simple magazine ranks cities by efficiency. Philly comes in 12th.

Which are the best cities for time-saving?

Real Simple magazine spent more than a few hours and brain cells in a quest to determine this, analyzing such categories as takeout on every corner, average commute, walkability, traffic congestion, airport on-time performance, physicians per capita, response times of emergency medical services, broadband and wireless availability, bookstores and libraries per capita, recycling access, number of farmers' markets, number of personal trainers and organizers, restaurants offering takeout per capita, miscellaneous time-saving services, etc.

Philly came in 12th of the 21 cities rated -- ahead of New York and behind Baltimore. The magazine noted of Philly: "Very walkable and notably uncongested, Philly is also the largest East Coast city to offer weekly single-stream recycling, with a pilot program called Recycling Rewards that offers points redeemable at local and national businesses."

Ranking: Seattle, Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis, Denver, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philly, New York, Chicago, Austin, Texas, (tie) Cleveland/Dallas/L.A., San Diego, Houston, and Phoenix.