My brother lives near Kearney NE. It is a great place to live and (mostly) affordable.
There is a VA medical center. Unless troubles comes in from Lincoln or Omaha, there are few problems.
There is meth, and crime from that. But one can stay away from all the trouble with minimal effort.
Having said that, not much industry except off the farms.
Is the list a joke? Probably not, but the authors probably did all of their research off the web.
“Kearney”
How do Nebraska locals pronounce that?
In New Jersey, we have a municipality by the name of “Kearny”.
This Guy grew up hearing the “ear” part of the town name “Kearny” pronounced: 1) in the same way as it sounds in the word “heart”. Or like a pirate saying “Arrrrrrrr”.
Some current residents of Kearny, mostly recent Hispanic immigrants, pronounce the “ear” part: 2) in the same way as it sounds in the word “learn”.
Some others pronounce the “ear” part: 3) in the same way as it sounds in the word “fear”.
Still others pronounce the “ear” part: 4) in the same way as it sounds in the word “tear” (as in, what Nancy Pelosi famously did to a copy Trump’s State of the Union speech, and NOT the thing that fell in great quantity from Hillary’s eyes when Trump beat the pantsuit off off her in the 2016 race for POTUS).
According to the following micro-video, pronunciation #1 is how the Irish pronounce it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=psRC-Fv7_zI