IRVINE

Irvine has been crowned as the nation’s most woman-friendly city, taking the No. 1 spot after ranking fourth last year in an annual survey by Ladies’ Home Journal.

“I’m not surprised,” Mayor Christina L. Shea said. “It’s a great privilege for me to know that we were named the No. 1 best city for women, as we’ve been named No. 1 for so many other things.”

Irvine’s No. 1 rating is published in the Journal’s February issue. Two other Southern California cities--Thousand Oaks and Huntington Beach--also made the top 10. All three had the lowest crime rates of the cities surveyed.

The survey rated 200 of the nation’s largest cities on the eight traits that Journal readers deemed as most important to women: crime, lifestyle, education, jobs, health, child care, politics and economy.