BEST PLACES TO LIVE

MSN House & Home ^ | 8/22/05 | MSN

[txrangerette]

"Here are today's Best Places to Live, as presented in the book, "Cities Ranked and Rated", by Bert Sperling and Peter Sander, published by John Wiley.

Here are Sperling and Sander's top picks for livability:

Charlottesville, Virginia ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Corvalis, Oregon"

[txrangerette]

"For a complete ranking of all 331 metropolitan areas, visit Sperling's Best Places,

http://www.bestplaces.net/

or find "Cities Ranked and Rated" at your local bookstore."

Comment: Go to the MSN page to find the cities ranked 2 - 9 on the list. I didn't want to give them all away. Take a guess as to which cities measure up, and which areas of the country are most represented. They have what they consider objective criteria. Do you think they nail some, and miss others? What would be YOUR top ten picks? (Personal note: Something is wrong. Not a single Texas city made their list of top ten! Have not yet gone to the 331 ranked cities to see where the first Texas city shows up and which one it is...)

[txrangerette]

Here is an actual link to the site, Sperling's Best Places, for the rankings of 331 metropolitan areas...

http://www.bestplaces.net/

[SteveMcKing]

Atlanta?!!!

Pffft.

[JeffAtlanta]

Atlanta?!!! Pffft.

Yeah Atlanta. You may not know this, but cities are far more than just their downtown area. The city of Atlanta proper only makes up about 10% of the Atlanta metro area's population.

Look up Alpharetta sometime.

[Cosmo]

Charlottesville sucks. Don't move here -- you'd hate it:)

[txrangerette]

What would you replace Atlanta with, that is not now on their list? Just curious. And why not Atlanta? I have never been there, btw.

[LegendHasIt]

Golly, I can't believe that Santa Fe, NM is #2.... Or even #100.

You couldn't pay me to live there again.... Heck, even Madrid and Cerrillos have lost their charm due to all the yuppies, "artistes", hippies and other assorted leftists that have been flocking there in droves for the last 25 years. (Same thing with Taos.)

[txrangerette]

Ok (not that I would move to Charlottesville), but what exactly is wrong with it? I love geography, btw...

[nutmeg]

bookmark bump

[SteveMcKing]

I hear Atlanta is bad for crime...

[txrangerette]

I have heard bad things about Reno, NV, although I think people are still flocking there. A friend of mine left there for Ft. Worth a couple of years ago. She was very glad to get away. Do you know anything about it?

[jra]

Heck, Birmingham, AL has almost every shopping and dining option that ATL has, identical weather, with less than half the crime, a third of the traffic, and nearly none of the OVERBEARING homo presence.

Atlanta in the top ten? Atlanta in the top 50 is a joke.

[I still care]

I have family in Lawrenceville, which is an Atlanta suburb. It seems a great place to live. It's nice, new, lots of shopping, and near a major city for jobs.

Traffic is another story.

[txrangerette]

Have heard some good things about the Birmingham area. Just a thought...perhaps the overwhelming homosexual presence in Atlanta is exactly why the choosers chose Atlanta over Birmingham. Maybe to them, it is a plus! (Merely a wild guess, I hope they don't sue me for speculating this way...:o) )

[Cosmo]

Ummm.....too many people movin' here cuz they read about it in a magazine:)

[abigailsmybaby]

#1 place to live: Oildale, Ca

[bkepley]

8. Asheville, NC Asheville is situated at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, the highest part of the Appalachian Range. A low cost of living and affordable housing (median home price $202,100) offset the area's low measure of diversity and unremarkable economy.

They are evidently referring to economic diversity. Asheville ain't what it used to be since the rainbow people discovered it.

[JeffAtlanta]

Heck, Birmingham, AL has almost every shopping and dining option that ATL has, identical weather, with less than half the crime, a third of the traffic, and nearly none of the OVERBEARING homo presence.

It's an Alabama and Tennessee trait to compare Birmingham and Knoxville to major cities and think that they stack up. It's embarrassing when I visit my old hometown on the GA/TN/AL border and hear them spout off such ignorant nonsense.

Birmingham has nothing to compare to Buckhead or Midtown. I would be interested in comparing the crime statistics as well.

[bkepley]

Atlanta is big. That's about all I can say for it. I guess it's better than DC if that helps.

[txrangerette]

I just went to the Sperling site and found the list of 331 ranked cities. Was just very curious about Texas cities...

WELL!!!

Bryan/College Station ranks #13 on their list, followed by Austin/San Marcos at #22 and Abilene(YAY!) at #32.

(Don't tell them, but they would change the Abilene ranking if they visited MY neighborhood. Meaning, it would plummet so fast and hard you would not believe...)