From: adf@cs.utexas.edu (Angela Dappert-Farquhar)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Summary: places to live in the USA (ratings)
Date: 15 Oct 1992 08:55:59 -0500
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: earth.cs.utexas.edu


Following is a summary of the replies on the question on sources of
ratings of the most livable places in the US. 

I would like to thank the following people a lot:

Laura McGinnis 		lm3a+@andrew.cmu.edu 
ruth onn ece fac 	onn@hertz.njit.edu 
Susan Davis 		sdavis@khan.ftcollins.NCR.COM
Diane Diesh 		<diane@advtech.uswest.com>
Laura Floom 		lauraf@classy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov 
Cindy Windham 		cindy@berkp.uadv.uci.edu 
Keith E Gatling 	kgatling@rodan.acs.syr.edu 
Mike Sellers		mike@isgtec.com 
Jeff Knell 		jeffk@dosXX.med.utah.edu 
Erik Lode 		erik@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM 
Jean Jasinski 		jean@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM 

(Mary Jane likely has received many more comments on individual
places.)

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1. The following sources for ratings were mentioned:

- Rand-McNally's "Places Rated Almanac". (1981, 1985, 1989)

- Money magazine does an annual report on the top US cities.
  (September 1992)

- Parenting Magazine 
  within the last 2-3 years had an article about the 10 best
  cities for families. (I could not find this yet)

- Working Mother February 1991 had an article "15 Best Cities for Child Care".

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2. Factors

The evaluation categories in Money magazine are: Health, Crime,
Economy, Housing, Education, Transit, Weather, Leisure, and Arts.
Some of the factors used are: Clean water, Low crime rate, clean air,
plentiful doctors, many hospitals, strong local government, housing
appreciation, inexpensive living, low income taxes, good schools and
libraries, affortable medical care, recession resistance, etc.

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3. The Top 20 Places from Money Magazine

I list the top 20 places from Money magazine. Note, however, that
different sources using different criteria come up with quite
different results AND there seems to be quite a change for individual
places from year to year (e.g. Oakland: 103 last year, 15 in 1992)
which might suggest that they do a lot of improvements but it might
also suggest weak evaluation criteria.

 1. Sioux Falls, S.D.
 2. Columbia, Mo.
 3. Austin, Tx
 4. Minneapolis/St. Paul
 5. Fargo, N.D.
 6. San Francisco, Ca
 7. Honolulu  
 8. Provo/Orem, Utah
 9. Gainesville, Fla.
10. Madison, Wis.
11. Bremerton, Wash.
12. Bryan, Tx
13. Galveston/Teaxs City
14. Duluth, Minn.
15. Oakland


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4. The places people recommended individually were (see below for details)

- Pittsburgh, PA
- Colorado (Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder, Durango)
- Alaska (Anchorage)
- Onondaga County, NY, (Syracuse)
- The entire Pacific NorthWest (Portland area, specifically
  Tualatin/Sherwood, Corvallis, Eugene)
- The Salt Lake City area (pros and cons)
- Dallas/Ft Worth Texas 
- Atlanta, Georgia, the RTP area of North Carolina, Madison, Wisconson
and in some ways Vancourver BC, Toronto 
- Boise, Idaho	
- New Mexico (Albuquerque, Sante Fe)
- Arizona (Tucson)

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5. The following excerpts are attached for illustration of different
points people made:


From sdavis@khan.ftcollins.NCR.COM Tue Oct  6 11:01:28 1992
 Susan Davis <sdavis@khan>

-------------
I have to put in a positive vote for Colorado.  I have never lived in NZ, so
I can't compare it, but I have lived many places in the USA (Arizona, Colorado,
California, Florida, Virginia, Idaho, Alaska).  My favorites have been
Colorado and Alaska.  Currently we live in Colorado Springs.  This "city" is
about 500,000 people (not small but not too big).  We are located at the
base of Pikes Peak and the Rocky Mountains.  The climate is wonderful here...
Our summer days range from 70-90 and our winters range from 20-50.  We do
have some very cold snaps in the winter, but we also have many mild days.
Colorado Springs is known for it's sunshine -- almost every day of the year
has atleast some sunshine.  We are about 60 miles from Denver (the big city)
and we are about 2 - 3 hours to several snow ski areas.  Although I am not
a fisherman, my father is and he claims that Colorado has great trout fishing.

I am not familiar with you particular professions, so I can't comment on finding
those types of jobs in Colorado.  If you are interested in teaching at the
college level, there are several universities in the state including
CU (University of Colorado - Boulder or Colorado Springs), CSU (Colorado State
University - Ft. Collins), Colorado College (Private Liberal Arts College in
Colorado Springs).  CU also has a medical school in Denver.

There are also several small towns/cities around Colorado Springs such as
Woodland park (in the mountains - 20-30 minute commute) and Black Forest
(15-30 minute commute).  Between here and Denver is Castle Rock, and
North of Denver is Boulder and Ft. Collins (both smaller than Colo. Springs).
Both of these are college towns and have a really fun atmosphere.

We love it here, and we are raising our family here (Ryan is 18 months and we
have one due next May).  The schools are pretty good, but like most places,
they vary by district so it is important to get as much information before
you decide where to live/buy a house.   The average nice starter home in
Colorado Springs is about $80,000 (in Denver about $100,000).  A pretty
nice home in Colorado Springs (3-4 bedrooms, nice area, nice yard about
2000+ sqft etc.) is about $100,000 to 150,000.

-------------
I also said some nice things about Anchorage Alaska.  Beautiful state, small
population etc.

-- Susan Davis

PS.  I did live in Germany, but I was a baby at the time so I can't give you
any insight!

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From: kgatling@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Keith E Gatling)

Well, while I wouldn't go so far as to call it Heaven, I think that Onondaga
County, NY is a fairly nice place to live.  We live in the city of Syracuse
(home of Syracuse University, among other things) and I think that the
entire county just got up to its 14th or 15th murder of the year.  That's
what I like about this place...murders make the news...unlike the NYC
metropolitan area where I grew up.  Unless they were particularly grisly,
they were usually relegated to the middle of the paper somewhere.

The one problem you might have is the weather...we get a bit of snow here.
Summer is the two weeks when the ice skating is lousy.

But seriously folks, you may want to check out the Places Rated Almanac.  It
rates most of the major metropolitan areas in the country, and I'm pretty
sure that Syracuse isn't near the bottom.

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From: mike@isgtec.com (Mike Sellers)

There was just recently a discussion of this in misc.jobs.misc.
I'll give you a capsule here of what I said there.  

We recently moved from Portland, Oregon, to Toronto, Ontario as the
result of accepting my current position.  I'm glad we did it overall,
but it was a heart-wrenching decision; if quality & cost of living were
the only issue, we would _never_ have moved.  I should note too that
my wife and I have lived all over the US and overseas, so we've seen
more than a few areas firsthand.

My top choice for livability, cost, etc., especially considering factors 
like gardening, traffic, crime, climate, schools, and other family needs,
is still the Portland area, specifically Tualatin/Sherwood, without question.
The entire Pacific NorthWest ("upper left coast" :-) ) is quite good, but 
the cost of living and traffic in the Seattle area are killers.  Some other 
areas like Corvallis, Oregon, being a college town, might be somewhere where
you and your husband can find work.  Portland does have a small-feeling 
hi-tech market; no telling what you could find these days.  One aspect of
Oregon (out of many) that I might mention is the gardening:  people in 
western Oregon grow more fruits and vegetables in private gardens than
I've seen anywhere else in the US... and *anything* will grow there.
Also, Portland is known as the "Rose City" -- there are rose gardens 
all over -- and, curiously enough, the elephant-breeding capital of the
world.  It's also home to Tektronix, Intel, Mentor Graphics, Sequent,
HP (Corvallis), and many other high-tech firms.  Oh, and you mentioned
trout fishing.  This, along with ocean (salmon) fishing, the mountains,
desert, skiing, and forests (including the only state park inside city
limits) are available within a 2 hour drive of Portland.

Just to give you an idea: We sold our house (sniff) for $125000 last
April.  It was 2500sf, 4br, 3.5ba, .25 acre fenced lot with fruit trees,
garden, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, 3 decks, view of forests and 
mountains, on a court, great neighborhood, great schools.  I don't know 
that I'll ever see housing value/cost like that again.

Other areas you might want to consider (this information was amassed 
during my job search):  

The Salt Lake City area -- low cost of living, (one of the only areas
lower than the Portland area) generally good family living; but -- hot 
summers and cold winters and parochial attitudes abound.

Denver/Boulder Colorado -- higher in cost than Oregon or Utah, but
still reasonable.  Down-to-earth people, with a decidedly western
(but cosmopolitan) culture.  Seems to have a good job market.

Dallas/Ft Worth Texas -- same as Colorado, except last I checked the
housing market was very inexpensive.  Also the summers are imported
from Hell, as are the fire ants.  

Atlanta, Georgia, the RTP area of North Carolina, Madison, Wisconson
and in some ways Vancourver BC also rated highly on my list, which 
looked a lot like yours.

Toronto is by many measures a great place to live too.  It is safe, 
generally clean, the schools are generally good (but not great), and
people overall are friendly.  However, the cost of living is ridiculous--
Toronto is the most expensive city in N. America, I heard a few months
ago.  The sales tax is 15% (Oregon has _none_ ... talk about a shock!),
in addition to a hefty income tax, property tax, no mortgage deduction,
vehicular taxes, and just about every other form of tax you can think of.
But, I love my job, and it seems to be working out for us.

Good luck to you!

--
              Mike Sellers      User Interface Team Leader
           mike@isgtec.com      ISG Technologies, Toronto, Canada
              "Actum ne agas" -- Do not do what has been done.
                         Furare tantum ab Optimis

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From: jeffk@dosXX.med.utah.edu (Jeff Knell)


I would recommend the medium sized cities of the western US.
The primary restriction is, I believe, finding jobs in technical
fields; cities with universities would probably suffice.

A few examples (not based on any "survey" that I know of):

	Boise, Idaho	--mountains, good school
	Durango, Colorado   --mountains, skiing, college town
	Eugene, Oregon   --moderate climate, good school
	Albuquerque (?), New Mexico  --warmer, mountains/desert
	Sante Fe (area), New Mexico  --jobs at "the Labs", beautiful
	Tucson, Arizona  --warm (to hot), the no-snow option
		

I can't recommend my own home -- Salt Lake City, Utah.
The schools are adsurdly overcrowded and under funded,
and it is probably the only state in the US that is
culturally and politically dominated by a religion.

My wife and I like it here--the variable climate, the 
proximity to mountains and desert--but we're are still
making plans to leave because we do not want to raise
our two kids here. (I'm speaking from experience; I was
raised here.)

Good luck.


jeff

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6. On the Topic of Working and Raising Children in Germany:

From: onn@hertz.njit.edu (ruth onn ece fac)

I have first hand knowledge of working and raising a (now) 2.75 yo in 
the US. It is not trivial, but it is doable, especially if you are not
financially strapped. Of the options in Germany I have only second
(or third) hand knowledge, through a brochure put out by the Humbolt
Foundation, to provide information for scholers to whom they give
grants to come and do research in Germany. They say that it is a common
complaint of the grantees and their (ususally female) spouse, that it is
very hard to find child-care in Germany.
Since they are not trying to scare people away, I would take their (the
foundation's) assesment as pretty good.
However, I imagine that if you are well enough paid you can always find
a nanny or aupair, who will take care of your children,a nd allow both
parents to work. I have absolutely no experience in doing this.
Hope this helps, Ruth.