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SAN DIEGO, CA — The San Diego area was ranked among the 2023-2024 Best Places to Live in the country, according to a ranking released Tuesday by U.S. News and World Report.

The new list evaluates the 150 largest U.S. metropolitan areas based on value, competitiveness of the job market and quality of life.

San Diego is ranked 93rd on the list, up 14 positions from last year. One aspect that negatively impacted San Diego's rating, however, is housing affordability, which offered among the country's worst values, according to the U.S. News and World Report.

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Los Angeles, by comparison, slid in this year's rankings, down 11 positions to 139th.

Bakersfield came in second to last, at 149th, down two positions from last year. Santa Barbara, at 124th, is up two positions.

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The other California metro areas ranked by U.S. News are San Jose (No. 13), San Francisco (No. 45), Santa Rosa (No. 125), Sacramento (No. 127), Vallejo & Fairfield (No. 142), Salinas (No. 143), Modesto (No. 145), Fresno (No. 146), Visalia (No. 147) and Stockton (No. 148).

For the first time this year, U.S. News added methodology to measure a place’s strengths and weaknesses. The desirability index takes into consideration the number of days a year the temperature remains between 33 to 89 degrees Fahrenheit. It also includes an establishment-to-population ratio, which assesses the number of restaurants, bars and activities per 1,000 people.

Also this year, U.S. News moved its net migration category to the desirability index. And the value index, which previously focused only on housing affordability, now includes price parity — a U.S. Census data point on the general cost of goods within an area.

“This year’s rankings are a reflection of the current economic, social and natural factors that impact a place’s livability for its residents,” Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News, said in a news release.

“People are considering more than housing when they look at an area’s affordability — they want to know how much goods cost in that area,” Thorsby said. “The ever-present risk for severe weather and a community’s ability to recover — coupled with the area’s opportunities for social activities — are also taken into account when evaluating a best place to live.”

This year, Green Bay, Wisconsin, moved up two positions in the ranking to No. 1, due to its strong value and quality of life scores. Huntsville, Alabama, moved down to No. 2. At No.8, Charlotte, North Carolina, moved up 20 spots, and No. 6 Naples, Florida, re-entered the Top 10 after falling off last year.

Some places saw double-digit drops and fell out of the top 50. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, fell a steep 81 spots this year, coming in at 113 from 32, with lower scores across the index.

Seattle, Washington, saw an increase in its job market score, but declines in its quality of life, desirability and value scores resulted in a 45-spot drop in this year's ranking. Consequently, Seattle came in at No. 81, down from No. 36 last year. Kalamazoo, Michigan, saw a sharp drop, falling 40 spots from No. 50 to No. 90. While it only slightly decreased in value, it scored on the moderate/lower end of desirability and job market.

U.S. News based its ranking on data from the National Weather Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Census Bureau, the FBI, the Labor Bureau, Sharecare, and its own rankings on the nation’s best high schools and best hospitals.

SAN DIEGO — At California’s southern border, two parallel, towering fences stretch for miles, their reddish steel beams cutting through rugged hillsides thick with tall stalks of yellow wildflowers and marking where Mexico ends and the United States begins.

Around 10 days ago, as the end of a pandemic-era expulsion policy known as Title 42 approached, a migrant camp sprung up between the two border walls, with hundreds of people hoping to be allowed into the United States. I traveled to San Diego and Tijuana last week to report on the sprawling and diverse camp, its existence speaking of America’s shifting immigration policies as well as the desperation of migrants from across the world who are searching for better opportunities.

“There’s no other choice,” said Azamat Alin, 41, who spent at least $10,000 on a long journey from Kazakhstan to Brazil, and then through Central America to Mexico.

Alin had set out seeking financial opportunity and political freedom in the United States. He hadn’t expected to spend several nights in a migrant camp without shelter or sanitation. When I spoke to him through the metal bars of the border wall, he was wearing a plastic bag on his head to keep warm and had just spent his last few dollars on a box of Little Caesars pizza that a Tijuana food delivery driver sold him through the wall.

But he still would have made the journey, he said, had he known that the conditions would be this grim.

“Everyone is looking at the arrivals at the border, but the root of the problem lies in push factors inside countries of origin that are going to persist,” Justin Gest, a political scientist at George Mason University who studies immigration, told my colleague Miriam Jordan. “When crises occur, they generate northbound flows.”

At the border between San Diego and Tijuana, roughly 1,000 people jumped the first barrier separating the cities last week and then remained stuck behind another wall, as they awaited processing by U.S. officials. The area between the two border walls is technically on U.S. soil but is considered a sort of neutral zone. A Colombian man in the camp told me that he had paid $1,500 to smugglers who sawed a hole in the fence on the Mexico side for him, his partner and his toddler to climb through.

Reporters aren’t able to enter the camp, but we crowded on the San Diego side to speak to migrants through the wall. I saw hundreds of families there, huddled together for warmth under Mylar blankets, sharing protein bars and bottled water. Some had fashioned tents out of tarps and black plastic garbage bags.

A mother brushed her daughter’s long brown hair. A father chased his giggling toddler through the trash-strewn patch of dirt.

I had never observed such a diverse group of people in one place, with migrants from Angola, Russia, Guinea, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan and dozens of other countries. They wore styles and clothing from all over the world: straw sun hats, hijabs, tank tops, ponchos and kofias.

The meager supply of food and water birthed new businesses — delivery drivers on the Mexico side sold fried chicken, loaves of bread and bottles of Coke through the wall — as well as a striking system of order within the camp.

As aid workers distributed toilet paper, bags of clementines, water bottles and packages of toothbrushes, migrants from various regions designated leaders to receive and distribute the supplies for their groups.

The Africans in the camp — from Ghana, Somalia, Kenya, Guinea, Nigeria — selected a tall Somali man, who communicated with aid groups about the number of sanitary pads and blankets they needed that day. The Colombians had their own leader; so did the Afghans, the Turkish and the Haitians.

The system emerged organically as migrants sought to ease tensions among groups fighting over limited resources, according to Adriana Jasso, a volunteer with American Friends Service Committee.

“People are cold, hungry, desperate, destitute, nervous,” she told me. “It’s a dire situation, to say the least.”

If you read one story, make it this

In San Diego County, where the homeless death toll has increased by nearly 10 times in the last decade, one man fights to stay alive.

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Jennifer Russell:

“Living in the Bay Area means access to our wonderful East Bay Regional Parks. They are particularly awesome in spring with wildflowers, newts, luscious green hills, trails for every skill level, soaring birds, expansive views, rushing creeks and so much more. My favorites are Briones, Tilden and Castle Rock.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

And before you go, some good news

The City Nature Challenge is an annual contest that calls on people worldwide to take and submit photos of plants, animals and insects in their backyards and neighborhoods.

Originally started in 2016 by the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the contest is intended to help people connect with nature while also documenting and celebrating biodiversity.

In the 2023 City Nature Challenge, which was held in late April, more than 66,000 people around the world captured over 1.87 million observations — more observations than ever before.

The most observed species worldwide was the Mallard duck. In Los Angeles County, it was the Western fence lizard, followed by the western honey bee. In the Bay Area, it was the California poppy.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

Briana Scalia and Allison Honors contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.

Modeled after a modern Parisian cafe, Pâtisserie Mélanie has opened its new 30th Street storefront and bakery more than three years after leasing the 1,500-square-foot corner site. Working with the architect behind Napa Valley’s famed Bouchon Bakery, the North Park salon is a sleek showcase for pastry chef Melanie Dunn, who launched her eponymous patisserie in 2018 out of the kitchen of her live-work space on Park Boulevard.

A former English teacher at a San Diego area high school, Dunn spent three summers in Paris attending Le Cordon Bleu, where she earned a Diplôme de Pâtisserie while eating her way through the best bakeries in the French capital.

Her menu for the cafe includes classic, yeast-leavened viennoisseries like croissants, escargots aka pains aux raisins, and two different sizes of kouign-amann, the caramelized Breton pastry, as well as canneles, macarons, financiers, and traditional cakes and tarts ranging from mille-feuille and Paris-Brest to tarte tatin. There are also coffee drinks, French-style hot chocolate, and a variety of teas and tisanes from French gourmet food house Fauchon.

The North Park cafe also serves beer and wine, and a weekend brunch menu that includes croque monsieurs, quiches, tartines, and savory stuffed buckwheat crepes known as galettes. Dunn tells Eater that a full lunch menu will be offered during the week starting this summer, along with an afternoon happy hour featuring cheese plates and savory petits-fours.

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Pâtisserie Mélanie

3750 30th Street, San Diego, CA 92104

Team meeting follows ninth loss in 11 games, which drops Padres to 4 games below .500 as they again cannot capitalize on numerous chances

The cheers inside Petco Park for several big moments Wednesday were as loud as 32,416 could make it.

Almost every time, there was disappointment, followed by a brief chorus of boos.

But at the end of another bad loss to a bad team, what was left of the crowd inside the downtown ballpark that has been filled so often this season let the Padres know how they felt with a loud and long serenade.

“The way that we’re finishing the game,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said later, “I would boo ourselves too.”

The Royals made an effort to give the Padres another game but instead walked away with a 4-3 victory.

In losing for the second time in the three-game series, the Padres were 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, 0-for-3 with the bases loaded and scored just one run (on a balk) in their four chances with a runner at third base and less than two outs.

“We’re getting opportunities,” Jake Cronenworth said. “That’s not the problem. We have a really good offense. But when it’s time to execute and do the smart things in those big spots, we can’t just expect that it’s going to happen. We need to go out there and do it.”

How to remedy that was among the topics in a postgame meeting held by players.

“We’ve just got to do a better job,” Matt Carpenter said of the reason for the clubhouse conferencing. “You can feel the angst from the fans, and we feel it. It’s just some very unhappy time in the clubhouse — like (it is for) anyone following the team. We haven’t been able to execute like we were hoping we would at this point. So something’s gotta be done. We’ve got to do a better job.”

The meeting came six days after manager Bob Melvin addressed the team about playing with more urgency overall and more tenacity throughout games. Wednesday’s get-together was described as a frank discussion that furthered Melvin’s agenda and was more specific about in-game approach.

“You know, for the longest time, we’ve been saying that, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be fine’ or ‘This team’s too good.’” Carpenter said. “Well, at some point, you just gotta go out and you got to do it. You can’t talk about it anymore. And I think that’s where we’re at.”

It has been a month-and-a-half of being frustrated and frustrating, of gripping their bats into sawdust and shriveling under the weight of what they are supposed to be.

“A little bit of a snowball situation kind of happening,” Carpenter said, “where you get an opportunity in a game and guys want it so bad that they take themselves out of the at-bat by doing something that they otherwise normally wouldn’t do.”

It still seems ludicrous that a team with a $246 million payroll won’t be able to impose its will at some point.

Right now, however, the Padres are a season-high four games under .500 and playing infinitely below expectations.

In earning their 14th victory in 45 games this season, the Royals took a 1-0 lead on a dribbled single, a softly hit groundout and a double against Yu Darvish in the fourth inning. After Cronenworth’s first home run in 28 games and the Padres’ first home run in 38 innings tied the game 1-1, Vinnie Pasquantino’s two-run homer off Darvish put the Royals up 3-1in the sixth. They added a run on back-to-back two-out doubles, driving Darvish from the game in the process.

It was the most runs Darvish had allowed at Petco Park since Sept. 23, 2021, a span of 17 starts.

And it was too many for the Padres to overcome on a day in which the last-place team in the American League Central emptied its bullpen and gifted the Padres one run.

The Padres had at least one runner reach base each of the first eight innings against six Royals pitchers. Cronenworth’s homer gave the Padres their only run in 2⅔ innings against Mike Mayers, a right-hander making his season debut after being recalled from Triple-A Omaha, where he had a 6.88 ERA and 1.68 WHIP in eight starts.

A pair of one-out walks yielded nothing when Tatis grounded into an inning-ending double play. The Padres loaded the bases with one out in the fourth, on a single and two walks, before Trent Grisham and Austin Nola struck out.

Carpenter began the sixth with a walk, and singles by Ha-Seong Kim and Rougned Odor loaded the bases with no outs. Carpenter scored on a balk before Grisham and pinch-hitter Brett Sullivan struck out. The Padres got to 4-3 on Xander Bogaerts’ soft grounder up the middle that went for an infield single. But after Cronenworth walked to reload the bases, Tatis flied out to shallow right field.

Juan Soto walked to start the seventh inning against Aroldis Chapman and was at third with one out when Chapman walked Kim and Odor. Grisham followed with his fourth strikeout, and the inning ended when Chapman threw a 96 mph fastball well over the head of catcher Salvador Perez and Soto tried to score, only to have the ball bounce directly back to Perez, who tagged out Soto 10 feet short of the plate.

It was a bit of bad luck, but the Padres scored the first three of their runs in Monday’s 4-0 victory on two hits, five walks, a hit batter, an error and a wild pitch. They scored two unearned runs on two errors and a triple and were helped to one more by an ill-advised dive in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss.

Still, they lost twice in a row to a team that is essentially playing to fill stadium dates and get its players experience.

“The standings are what they are,” Bogaerts said. “You should at least, you should have the series win. That shows you should never underestimate any team. It’s a major league team. They have really good players on it. Just a lot of young guys.”

The Padres have now lost nine of 11 for the first time since September of 2021, when they were in the midst of one of the worst end-of-season collapses in MLB history.

They say this is different. They have more pitching depth, have more players with more experience and more past success.

And now they had a meeting.

“I think we’re gonna come out on top of this and we’re gonna get over this at some point,” Manny Machado said. “And we’re gonna play better, I promise you that.”

SAN DIEGO — The smiling face of Xander Bogaerts looks out over 10th Avenue from a billboard hanging high up on the side of Petco Park, a bat resting on his shoulder.

Venture inside and you can purchase three different versions of his No. 2 Padres jersey. Sales have been brisk based on an unscientific postgame survey of passing fans taken from the patio at Social Tap, a sports bar with views of the ballpark.

“There’s a lot of excitement here,” said Bogaerts, the new shortstop in town after playing 10 seasons with the Red Sox. “At Fenway Park, they’re used to success and winning. They’re anxious for that here.”

That feeling — along with $280 million over 11 years — lured Bogaerts to the Padres. He’s now part of a lineup that includes Manny Machado, Juan Soto, and Fernando Tatis Jr.

In an exclusive interview with the Globe before playing against his former team for the first time Friday night, Bogaerts said he has no regrets about leaving the Red Sox as a free agent. He sees that as management’s decision, not his.

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“I talk to my guys there all the time, the players and coaches, almost every day,” he said. “That team will always be a part of me. But once I could meet with other teams, I saw what they thought of me. I really had no choice in the end.”

Bogaerts now wakes up with a view of boats bobbing in the Pacific Ocean through the window of his apartment on Coronado Island, a short drive from the ballpark.

“I can’t complain about that,” he said.

But true to his deliberate nature, Bogaerts decided to rent and get to know the area first before deciding where to buy a house.

“I definitely need a house,” he said. “I’m going to be here for a long time.”

His mother and siblings have taken turns making the trip from Aruba to visit.

“It’s been cool,” Bogaerts said. “I like having my family around. I don’t really have any buddies here yet. Obviously, I know everybody on the team. But the off-the-field stuff, that will come over time. I won’t rush it. That time will come.”

The on-the-field stuff has been more awkward. A team built to contend for a championship is 20-24 with losses in seven of its last eight games.

The Padres, who have a $246 million payroll, were frequently and loudly booed in the final innings of a 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals Wednesday.

“I don’t blame them,” manager Bob Melvin said. “There’s a lot of expectations on us and we’re not performing right now.”

Related: Why Xander Bogaerts chose to sign with the Padres over the Red Sox

The seventh inning was typical of San Diego’s frustrating season.

Down by a run, the Padres loaded the bases with one out. Trent Grisham struck out looking against Aroldis Chapman. With Bogaerts on deck, Chapman threw a high fastball past catcher Salvador Perez.

Soto broke for the plate as the ball ricocheted off the backstop right back to Perez. Soto was out by 10 feet and heard it from the fans.

The Padres held a lengthy team meeting after the game, the doors to the clubhouse remaining closed for 31 minutes.

The Bob Marley classic “Three Little Birds” was playing on the sound system when reporters were allowed in. But the notion that every little thing’s gonna be all right with the Padres is grounded more in hope than reality at the moment.

“We have to clean a lot of stuff up and pay better attention to detail,” Bogaerts said. “I don’t have to say what it is. You can look at the games. I don’t fault the effort, but we have to be better.”

The Padres also learned Wednesday that they could be without Machado for the Red Sox series. He has missed the last two games with a small metacarpal fracture in his left hand.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Machado said when asked when he could return.

Bogaerts has reached base in 41 of 43 games and leads the Padres in runs (25) and hits (44). He also has played well defensively.

But he is 6 for 39 (.154) with runners in scoring position and his .805 OPS is well below the .845 he averaged during his last seven seasons in Boston.

“If you look at all-around, I’ve been good,” Bogaerts said. “But I started out really well, then left my swing in Mexico when we played there. It’s been a constant battle since. I went through that last year also.

“It’s like my mind wants to do one thing and my body does something else. That is really frustrating because my plan and my approach have been good.”

Has his contract created pressure?

“No. Not yet,” Bogaerts said. “It hasn’t. But I know I can play better.”

The Padres have yet to win a World Series and their last National League pennant was in 1998. Bogaerts grew up playing for a franchise now defined by its success. Here the story has yet to be written.

“They brought Bogey in here to put them over the top,” said Jake Peavy, the former Padres ace who played with Bogaerts in Boston. “He has that championship credibility, that leadership. They’re hungry to win there, from ownership on down.”

Related: Padres introduce Xander Bogaerts as their new shortstop

In a clubhouse with some high-maintenance personalities, Melvin saw Bogaerts as a perfect fit.

“Xander is fantastic,” he said. “He was in Boston for so long, but two days into spring training you feel like he’s been here for quite a while.

“Very impactful, hard-working, an elite player. He comes as advertised, and there aren’t many guys you can say that about.”

Melvin, who has managed four teams over 20 seasons, tends to let players dictate the relationship they want to have with him.

“From the day he had his press conference [in December], it was comfortable,” Melvin said. “He’s a true pro. One of the really unique people in the game.”

Bogaerts joked that he will try to bunt for a hit against Rafael Devers this weekend.

“It’s going to be fun for me to see them, not sad,” he said. “We all know this is a business. We have to beat them.

“When I played there, I thought I’d be there forever. But as you get older, as you grow up, life changes. Decisions are made that are out of your control. In the end, the relationships that you build are what matters.

“There ain’t no looking back now, I’ll tell you that.”