13 July 2010
This morning on the radio, there was a discussion about Money magazine’s 100 Best Places to Live. They said the list includes only small cities, which they interpret to mean 50,000-300,000 residents.
It turns out that #1 on the list is Eden Prairie. Even after reading the reasons for Eden Prairie’s honored selection, though, I still couldn’t figure out why it was #1. Granted, I don’t have extensive knowledge of all the small cities in America, but I’m not sure, exactly, what makes Eden Prairie stand out so much from so many other cities nearby. Why not Edina? Or Maple Grove? Or Minnetonka? Perhaps it’s because they purposely excluded retirement communities and cities with over 95% white people. ‘Cause, you know, those cities can’t possible be good. Those cities didn’t even make the list.
Money magazine appears to have an infatuation with Minnesota it would seem. Or, at least, they did initially, and then their love floundered. Four other Minnesota cities make the top 20, and then there’s not a single Minnesota citing in the rest of the list. The other four cities from the Land of 10,000 Lakes are: Plymouth (at #11), Woodbury (at #13), Eagan (at #15) and Apple Valley (at #20). The only one of these five cities I’ve ever lived in is Apple Valley. I gotta admit, Apple Valley was a very clean, safe place, with lots of stores and restaurants right in town. They also had some great parks, most notably the Minnesota Zoo. I bet those animals are all happy that they live in the 20th best place to live in America.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Eden Prairie. Plymouth was #1 back in 2008, and now look how it’s fallen! Meanwhile, the city of Chanhassen ranked #2 last year, and doesn’t appear at all in this year’s list.
Also today: My sister has entered her 30s today. When last I saw her, at that wedding back on Saturday, she was pretty keen on having the baby share her birthday. Sorry, Diane, doesn’t look like that’s happening. I called her today to wish her a happy birthday. She said she spent four hours mowing the lawn today. Oh well. Hope the rest of her 30s are more fun than that.
14 July 2010
I didn’t realize this until I was driving in to work this morning, but my son is five years and two months old as of today. I agree, that’s a pretty meaningless milestone, but here’s why I found it noteworthy: That’s how old I was when I became a big brother. So, unless the new baby doesn’t arrive until after August 14th (by which time it would be considered overdue), Owen will be the same age – to the month – that I was when I first got a sibling. We didn’t plan that, honest.
The three of us when for a walk around the mall today. The glasses-fogging humidity was too much to handle, so I thought a leisurely stroll through the mall would be good. After walking around for a while, and lamenting the lack of nice newborn outfits for sale at all the kids’ stores, we ate at Tucci Benucch. Jennifer pointed out that, on the day before Owen’s birth, that’s exactly what we did: we went for a walk at a mall, then ate at an Italian restaurant. So, who knows, maybe the baby will be born tomorrow. But I’ve been assured that it most likely will not.
Nope, I don’t think baby is making an appearance quite yet.
And Apple Valley? Yuck. Not my idea of one of the best towns in America.
A couple things about the best places list — last year’s #2 Chanhassen wasn’t eligible this year due to population. It looks like they flip flop every year between 50,000-300,000 and 8,500-50,000 for city size.
I think the reason you see MN start out strong in the top 20 and then not again on the list is because they weighed “economic factors most heavily” for the final 1-100 and most of the economic factors are by state (so they didn’t have much to split them). Further, all eligible cities for MN are within the same metropolitan area. (While most state’s cities have a similar tight distribution on the list, the exceptions are when the cities listed are located in different metro areas.)
If you look at just the MN cities in the full list of 800+, the five ranked cities are in exact order of Median Family Income. Minnetonka and Maple Grove would fall in between Woodbury and Eagan had they made the final 100. Lakeville would be right behind Apple Valley, but in all three cases it appears the 95% white filter is what got them factored out (although the 2000 census data reported on Wikipedia reports all three between 94-95%, they are the only three >94%).
Thanks for your additional research.
I gotta say, that’s an incredibly stupid idea to alter the population requirements each year. I wonder if the academy awards change how long a film must be each year before deciding on the best picture nominees. I’d rather see four lists of 25 cities, divided up by size, than one list of 100.
Filtering out towns that are “too white” is dumb, too. I mean, unless those towns purposely exclude non-whites. I certainly hope towns that are “too Hispanic,” “too black,” and “too oriental” are likewise omitted.
Racial diversity would definitely be a factor for me in choosing which towns are the best to live in. I passed up a really nice school for Owen because it was not racially diverse enough. I would never want to live in a town that didn’t have any racial diversity. It makes sense to me.
Racial diversity should be a factor in deciding which cities are the best, but I don’t think they should automatically exclude cities just because they have limited diversity. It’s like saying that any city without a view of the ocean is automatically excluded. Sure, having the ocean nearby is a plus, but I don’t think that not being near an ocean means the city automatically sucks.
I would be very surprised if the worst city with <5% blacks was better than the best city with >5% blacks, yet that’s what the survey implies.
Yeah, I just don’t see the problem with ensuring that each city on the list at least has some people of color living in it. I wouldn’t want to live in a city that was so closed off to diversity, and I wouldn’t consider such a city to be one of the “best” places to live in America. I would consider that to be a really bad place to live, probably classist and racist based on their numbers.