The 100 Best Places to Raise a Family
 

As according to Best Life, who used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Education Statistics, FBI, American Association of Museums, National Center for Health Statistics, and the American Bar Association, to analyze the following:
-Security
-Schools (student-teacher ratios & test scores)
-Budgets
-Museums
-Parks
-Pediatricians
-Commutes
-Housing costs
-Divorce rates

1 Honolulu, Hawaii
2 Virginia Beach, Virginia
3 Billings, Montana
4 Columbus, Georgia
5 San Diego, California
6 Des Moines, Iowa
7 Minneapolis, Minnesota
8 Madison, Wisconsin
9 Colorado Springs, Colorado
10 Santa Rosa, California
11 Wichita, Kansas
12 Los Angeles, California
13 Corona, California
14 Austin, Texas
15 Stamford, Connecticut
16 Omaha, Nebraska
17 Naperville, Illinois
18 Fort Wayne, Indiana
19 Springfield, Illinois
20 Boise, Idaho
21 Manchester, New Hampshire
22 South Bay Area, California
23 New York, New York
24 Fontana, California
25 Louisville, Kentucky
26 Plano, Texas
27 Oceanside, California
28 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
29 Sacramento, California
30 Ann Arbor, Michigan
31 Reno, Nevada
32 Las Vegas, Nevada
33 Lincoln, Nebraska
34 San Bernardino, California
35 Grand Rapids, Michigan
36 Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
37 Kansas City, Kansas
38 Fremont, California
39 Buffalo, New York
40 Berkeley, California
41 Cambridge, Massachusetts
42 Kansas City, Missouri
43 Waterbury, Connecticut
44 Syracuse, New York
45 Phoenix, Arizona
46 Albuquerque, New Mexico
47 Akron, Ohio
48 Boston, Massachusetts
49 Escondido, California
50 Fairfield, California
51 Antioch, California
52 Elgin, Illinois
53 Rochester, New York
54 Seattle, Washington
55 Tucson, Arizona
56 Santa Clarita, California
57 Denver, Colorado
58 Indianapolis, Indiana
59 Glendale, Arizona
60 Chicago, Illinois
61 Atlanta, Georgia
62 San Antonio, Texas
63 Mobile, Alabama
64 Concord, California
65 Denton, Texas
66 Coral Springs, Florida
67 San Francisco, California
68 Cedar Rapids, Iowa
69 El Paso, Texas
70 San Buenaventura, California
71 Worcester, Massachusetts
72 Baltimore, Maryland
73 Richmond, California
74 Lowell, Massachusetts
75 Portland, Oregon
76 Jacksonville, Florida
77 Fort Collins, Colorado
78 Orlando, Florida
79 Modesto, California
80 Montgomery, Alabama
81 Tampa, Florida
82 Salinas, California
83 Newport News, Virginia
84 Oakland, California
85 Augusta, Georgia
86 Fort Worth, Texas
87 Washington, D.C.
88 Tulsa, Oklahoma
89 Bellevue, Washington
90 Cincinnati, Ohio
91 McKinney, Texas
92 St. Louis, Missouri
93 Hayward, California
94 Midland, Texas
95 Sterling Heights, Michigan
96 Greensboro, North Carolina
97 Arlington, Texas
98 Alexandria, Virginia
99 Winston-Salem, North Carolina
100 Lexington, Kentucky

And of course, the worst:
Springfield, Missouri
Dayton, Ohio
Corpus Christi, Texas
Flint, Michigan
Columbia, South Carolina
Waco, Texas
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Beaumont, Texas
Clarksville, Tennessee

In other words, what we already knew: California is the greatest place on Earth.

San Diego must have stunningly good museums and pediatricians because it's a crappy place to live for commutes and housing costs.

No Utah towns...
I'm sure this has more to do with class sizes than anything else, but interesting, nonetheless.

Lived in Ft Wayne--great schools. Same for Grand Rapids.

Agree that Flint is the armpit of Michigan. And the country.

And Cambridge, Bay area, LA, Bellevue, Alexandria, etc... Housing costs and commutes must be way down on their criteria. There's not many of those places I would want to raise a family. Live? Maybe. Raise a family? Well, if you're making 300+K, I guess so.

Boooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

How would you know, liar?

Honolulu, Hawaii at #1? LA at #12?

That's funny.

Honolulu is a very weird number one.

Seriously, are there any museums in Utah outside LDS museums? I guess the U of U has a pretty good museum of natural history. Is there an art museum in Salt Lake?

Do any families even live in Honolulu? It seemed to me that it was all hotels.

BYU has a natural history museum with cool dinosaur bones and an art museum on campus, although the art museum refused to show Rodin sculptures at one time...I was attending law school at the time, I think. If an art museum refuses to display Rodin, then I kinda wonder how legit it can really be.

We were in Utah for about 8 days last summer and looked for some traditional museums to pass the time. Didn't have a lot of luck. We did go to a fun Children's Science Center kind of place downtown at the Gateway Mall. Not really a museum but a fun interactive playground for kids.

We wound up going to the Hogle Zoo and looking at the Ghost of the Bayou...an albino alligator that was either asleep or almost dead when we walked by and looked into the tank.

Honolulu is weird. I love going there for tourism, but truthfully, most of the neighborhoods are pretty old and dumpy. Some are almost third world.....clotheslines, stray dogs running everywhere, old cars that no longer work, some yard has a random washing machine out front, etc..

There are some really nice areas, like Hawaii Kai just past Honolulu. Also, I really like Mililani Town.

Once you go to the North Shore side, and over by Laie, all that is also mostly old or dumpy, too (excepting a lot of the houses right on the beach along the North Shore, of course)

Besides this, http://museum.ceu.edu/history.htm, I can't think of any others.

Certainly SLC can't hold a candle to the Air Force Museum and Dayton Art Museum found in the Dayton, Ohio (Birthplace of Flight).

Why am I not surprised? Research my ass.

Aren't denton Texas and Waco Texas right next to each other? Denton is in the top 100 and Waco is one of the worst? THis doesn't make much sense to me (unless I am wrong about their proximity) and reflects poorly on Baylor, eh?

seriously, DDD, how is BYU's natural history museum on protohumans? Hee hee.

This whole thing is stupid. What is Best Life magazine anyway? THough I do hold it against Utah that it's so barren of cultural amenities including museums. That is bad for children.

Denton is just north of Dallas, and about a three hour drive from Waco.

Do you have kids? If so, how many art museums have you taken them through?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

If I'm wrong, tell me your secret. When we've gone anywhere, we've had to switch off watching kids with another couple to see anything cultural. My kids really enjoy...well, childrens museums. Well, that and dinosaur bones--they did sort of enjoy the Field Museum in Chicago--but liked the Aquarium MUCH better.

The fact that museums are on this list at all (as well as some of the cities highlighted) tells me these people don't have kids.

Speaking of museums--has anyone ever been to the wildlife museum in St George? My kids loved that one.

troublemaker!

You should stick to medicine because persuasive writing is not your forte.

Touche...

I guess the unwritten point I was trying ineptly to make is that wildlife museums (basically a collection of trophies from a guy's hunting exploits all over the world) probably aren't the type of "culture" SU and these authors are all giddy about.

Museums in Utah:

http://www.utah.com/museums/

You sneaky bastard. Quit editing quotes.

Thank you.

I've taken my kids to every major museum in Seattle, including the SAM and the Asian art museum and (which are big museums), the UW natural history museum, the Chicago Institute of Art, the Met, the Field Museum, etc. We saw a special Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum. My four year old is passionate about Pompoii, Vesuvius, etc. I can't think of a more important thing to do with kids. One thing I learned from my religious forebears is you start programming early. It's never too early to start. I took my kids to the Chicago Instutute of Art three times while my wife was in meetings over a couple of trips when one was a toddler and the other a baby.

The secret is don't do too much at one time. I forgot to mention I took my 7 year old and four year old boys to the recently completed ancient Roman/Renaissance art exhibit from the Louvre here in Seattle. The ancient Roman stuff (where were breathtaking, I felt better than the Met's permanent Classical exhibit) resonated because we've been reading books on Classical antiquity.

Elementary school tours are a staple and a daily activity at art museums everywhere.

I grew up on the North Shore of Hawaii and then Santa Clarita, CA.

Honolulu is a great place to raise your kids if you're rich and haole and can afford to send your kids to Punahou or Kam schools.

Santa Clarita doesn't have any museums that I can remember. They have the Oak of the Golden Dream monument where gold was discovered when a man napped beneath a tree, dreamed of gold and awoke hungry pulling up some wild onions under the tree only to find some gold nuggets.

But I guess it is in relatively close proximity to LA. The schools are top notch though. Hart, Canyon, and Valencia are sports powerhouses. The Foothill League owns the Marmonte League.

This may be true. But people in the Marmonte League own the businesses where the Foothill league residents work.

PS if you cant tell, i still hate canyon.

Some of the rationale for ranking Honolulu #1 was:

-Schools spend almost $9,000 per pupil
-Unemployment ranks less than half the national average
-The island has 125 beaches

And this one's for SU:
In #54 Seattle, the residents spend $266 per person annually to maintain the city's parks.

Well then those owners pay a nice salary because Santa Clarita ain't cheap.

No worries, I hate Canyon too.

Honolulu is also the ice capitol of the world. I wonder if Best Life has ever watched Dog the Bounty Hunter.

At $15-25 entry to these places, I'm not keen to taking my kids in for a half-hour visit. Part of the limiting factor is our 18-month old. But my 4 and 7 yr olds are both very bright and interested in things, but they're also normal--in the sense that they like to explore, like to touch, etc. Traditional museums aren't real keen on this.

Albuquerque at 46?
You couldn't pay me enough to live in Albucracky.

The spirit.

. Oh.

nevermind.

I actually agree there. Utah really needs to get its act together with museums. I am still furious with downtown SLC (read Anderson) for not jumping at the opportunity to take all of the dinosaur bones from BYU for FREE. SLC could have a world class natural history museum right downtown, but they didn't have the vision to put it together (or an Olympic park, or (so far) an arts district). It is a travesty. Instead, they wound up at Thanksgiving Point. I get angry every time I drive past it.

Anderson did a lot of good things for the city, but the biggest things of all he totally dropped the ball on (including RSL's stadium, which should also be downtown and not in Sandy).

But Santa Clarita has Six Flags!