Customer Reviews

Cities Ranked and Rated: More than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. and Canada, 1st Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book is a knockoff of PLACES RATED ALMANAC, a superior book that has gone through several editions since 1981. The authors obviously weren't speaking to each other when they wrote this turkey. There are too many incredible mistakes and contradictions. Previous reviewers here have had a good time pointing out many. Let me weigh in with more.

Rochester, Minnesota feels like a small town, "although the population exceeds 1 million." Huh? Rochester's metro population is 130,000 according to the book. Could they have meant Rochester, New York? For Rochester, New York, we do see that its metro population is 1.1 million and that one of its big negatives is cost of living. Yet the book rates cost of living there at 90 percent of the US average of 100. How is that a negative? Could they have meant Rochester, Minnesota? They also say Rochester, New York is the "fourth rainiest place in the country," yet the book's data show annual precipitation there to be well under the US average.

You want rain? Let's travel to the Gulf South. Houston's annual rainfall is well above the national average, which the book notes. But it also notes that greater Houston "covers 900 miles, more than twice the size of Rhode Island." Could they have meant "more than half the size of Rhode Island?" Look it up: Rhode Island covers 1,545 square miles. Further east on the Gulf, New Orleans has annual rainfalls well above the national average, too, and the book notes the area's flood-prone conditions and hurricane risk. Yet the New Orleans's "inland water" is just 10 sq. miles, according to the book. New Orleans was just drowned by 600 sq. mile Lake Pontchartrain, an inland body of water that is completely surrounded by New Orleans's parishes. Still further east, Gainesville, Florida, "does not have serious problems with hurricanes." On the next page, however, the college town is rated much worse for "hurricane risk" than New Orleans. Whoa!

Nitpicking? Not at all. I'm just casually paging through this book, getting pretty uncomfortable with the multitude of mistakes.

One of Wilmington, Delaware's negatives is a lackluster forecast for "future job growth." But the book says the area, "led by the chemical industry, became a prosperous industrial center and remains so today with a healthy future job outlook." See what I mean? The book is totally unreliable.

This book rates cities by several livability factors, then adds the ratings to determine who's #1 (it's Charlottesville, VA), who's #2 (Santa Fe, NM) . . . all the way down to who's #331 (Laredo, TX), dead last.

In doing so, the authors have inadvertently switched the ratings of cities with the same name: Columbia (Missouri and South Carolina), Columbus (Georgia and Ohio), Decatur (Alabama and Illinois), Florence (Alabama and South Carolina) Jackson (Michigan and Mississippi), Lafayette (Indiana and Louisiana) and Springfield (Illinois and Massachusetts).

For example: Florence (Alabama) gets Florence (South Carolina's) rosey score for employment, while the latter is saddled with the former's rather grim employment score. Or, Jackson (Michigan) receives Jackson (Mississippi's) milder weather rating, while the latter is stuck with the former's rotten climate rating.

Since a city's ranking depends on the rankings of other cities, these astounding errors affect the final results of every other city listed in the book. You can verify this yourself by comparing ratings summarized in the beginning of the book with ratings in each city's profile.

This book is a fraud. If this had happened in health care or financial services, the authors would have been fired and their study withdrawn.

Filled with inaccuracies and a mind-boggling rankings methodology that somehow places small, destitute towns higher on the desirability meter than thriving, edge communities with job machines in their infrastructures, this book did at least provide one thing: comic relief.

If you need a book of city stats with reliable data and by authors who understand their core audience, find a copy of the 2000 Edition of Places Rated or get Richard Florida's "Rise of the Creative Class."

Would LOVE to have my $$$ back from this purchase -- next time I'll know better and review the book in person (or at least take to heart the reviews of fellow purchasers on Amazon.com) before turning over hard-earned cash.

As a former reviewer mentioned, the methodology used for determining the best places to live in the U.S. in this book is utterly bizarre. The most obscure, po-dunk towns all get top rankings while Portland Oregon is the only city of any size that appears in the top twenty or so listings. Now, Portland is a great city, but you'll find Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco all down below the obscure places. The bottom line is that everyone has different things they are looking for and a city slicker like myself would never, ever be truly happy in a city under a certain size or in a highly 'red' political climate. Why oh why Wiley publishers chose to replace the excellent Places Rated Almanac (published since 1981) with this new book is a mystery! Get the 2000 edition of Places Rated Almanac for a more practical look at the best cities in America.

I was happy to see this book come out since I only had found the
older "Places Rated Almanac" up to this point. I am looking to
relocate and so this sort of information is very useful to me.

However, I am going to return this book since I am disappointed
with the rankings and question the accuracy of the information. I
know two towns rather well, and both were mis-characterized in
the rankings.

Example 1 - Macon, GA: "Snows occurs during most winters." This
is simply not true. There was a dusting of snow 2 years ago that
lasted maybe a day and a half. Previous snow, 10 years before
then. Long time locals tell me that it's extremely rare to get
any snow here.

Example 2 - Iowa City, IA: IC received a score of 7 for Arts &
Culture, Macon a 25 - this is totally ridiculous. There are a lot
of things going on in Iowa City, Macon doesn't even come
close. To award Macon a score nearly 4 times higher than Iowa
City boggles the mind.

I know these two places well, and for me the information about
these two places puts into question the rest of the information
in the book.

I hope there will be a revised, and more accurate second edition
out.

I give it two stars since the rankings/editorial comments are
important to me. While I can't comment on the
accuracy of the statistics, the rankings/editorials were one of
the main reasons for my getting this book. Raw statistics can
be used to look up specific information, but the other material

can guide your search.

I move around a lot so I always enjoy reading books like this. I've been using the Places Rated Almanac for years and was excited when I found this book, but unfortunately it's not the magnificent piece of work that I hoped it would be. I will mention one very good thing about the book and that's the "introductory sections" for each city, where the authors write a short description about the city and list a few "pros and cons" of living in that particular city. These introductions usually give you a good overall impression of what the city is like, and you can learn things that you wouldn't be able to by just looking at the statistics. That's about the only improvement over the Places Rated Almanac that I can think of. Now for the bad stuff.

This book is very politically correct. One of the ways that this is obvious is that they consistently list "low ethnic diversity" as one of the "cons" of living in a particular city. I suspect that when the authors were trying to decide which city should be ranked number one, they automatically eliminated from consideration any city that had a very high percentage of white residents. They say that Charlottesville is the best place in the country to live, but in the most recent Places Rated Almanac Charlottesville wasn't even ranked in the top one hundred.

This politically correct bias is sometimes evident in the way the authors describe crime rates. Take a look at the three Jacksons, one in Michigan (MI), one in Mississippi (MS), and one in Tennessee. Keep in mind that the average U.S. violent crime rate (VCR) is 456, with a higher score indicating more crime. Jackson MI is 95 percent white and has a VCR of 555. Jackson MS is 54 percent white and has a slightly higher VCR of 561 (and a much higher property crime rate). In the introductory section for Jackson MI the authors specifically mention a high VCR, while they don't say anything about the crime rate in Jackson MS. The other Jackson, in Tennessee, is 74 percent white and has a super high VCR of 905. Nothing is said about the high VCR. Meanwhile, two other cities with much lower VCRs, Knoxville (554) and Indianapolis (587), both get specific mentions for high violent crime. Knoxville and Indianapolis are both about 90 percent white.

Now let's compare two cities in the same state, Florida. Jacksonville is 77 percent white and has a VCR of 867 and a property crime rate of 4986. Fort Myers is 91 percent white and has both a lower VCR (651) and a lower property crime rate (4147). In the introductory section for Fort Myers the authors list a high crime rate as one of the disadvantages of living in that city. What do they say about crime in Jacksonville? Absolutely nothing.

And finally consider Savannah GA, which is only 66 percent white. For "cons" the authors list summer heat, performing arts, and air quality. They fail to mention, however, that Savannah has one of the highest overall crime rates in the United States.

The worst thing about this book is that it contains a huge number of errors, contradictions, and discrepancies. Other reviewers have already pointed out many of these mistakes. Here are some more.

For Los Angeles the authors say that "air quality is the worst in the nation by far". But on the air quality table on page 96, there are five other cities listed as having worse air quality than LA. On the same table Tucson is listed as having almost the cleanest air in the country, but when describing Tucson the authors say that the city has poor air quality. They say that Sarasota has high unemployment, but according to their own statistics the unemployment rate is only 3.7 percent, compared to a national average of 6.1 percent. For Shreveport they say that the crime rate is "by far" the lowest in the state. But according to the statistics, Shreveport has both a higher violent and property crime rate than two other cities in Louisiana, Houma and Lafayette. On the table on page 100, which lists the cities with the highest violent crime rates, the rate given for Jackson MI is actually the rate for Jackson TN, the rate given for Florence AL is actually the rate for Florence SC, and the rate given for Jacksonville NC is actually the rate for Jacksonville FL. And on the table which lists the highest overall crime rates, on page 102, the rate given for Springfield IL is actually the rate for Spokane WA, and the rate given for Sharon PA is actually the rate for Savannah GA.

Keep in mind that this is by no means a complete list of mistakes. What would happen if someone checked every single statement, fact, and statistic in this book for accuracy? I don't know how many total mistakes you would find, but it would probably be enough to write a whole separate book about!

I hate to rip into an author's hard work, but I've spent an hour with this book and it cries out for the harshest criticism. It is so much flawed by errors that buyers deserve a refund.

The authors write, "the University of Mississippi adds college-town features" to the state capital in Jackson. Alas, the university is in Oxford, 150 miles north. They write of State College, Pennsylvania: "at 75,000, the [Penn State University] student body outnumbers the town's non-student population," unaware that 35,000 are somewhere else in the state at 20 branch campuses.

"Interestingly," they observe, "higher education facilities are present in all but 3 of the 331 metropolitan areas: San Angelo, Texas; Racine, Wisconsin; and Punta Gorda, Florida." What are Angelo State University in San Angelo and Edison Community College in Punta Gorda? Mirages?

The authors show Yuma, Arizona, resembling Albania or Lesotho because of an August 2003 unemployment rate of 34 percent. The figure reflects farm workers applying for unemployment benefits after the harvest and has little to do with the year-round economy. Apparently, the warnings from Bureau of Labor Statistics to stick with 'seasonally adjusted' unemployment statistics were lost of the authors.

What about the book's internal contradictions?

"Oil and gas are the main industries," they write of Lafayette, Louisiana (but later, 'Healthcare and Social Assistance' is listed as Lafayette's "largest employing industry"). Gainesville, Florida, "doesn't have serious problems with hurricanes," (but later, Gainesville is awarded one the country's worst "hurricane risk" scores). Hartford, Connecticut "has the greatest percentage of Hispanic residents north of Florida and east of the Mississippi," (but later, Jersey City and New York are shown to have much higher figures). Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is a beach resort with "over 100 golf courses," (but later, Myrtle Beach's "golf-course rating" is pegged as one the country's worst). Santa Fe's "arts and culture" is its strong suit (later on, the New Mexico capital is ranked in the bottom third in the ARTS & CULTURE category).

Finally, a place's category rankings don't agree when they are summarized in the book's Appendix. For example, New Orleans's CLIMATE rank of 97 falls to 100 in the Appendix. Boulder, Colorado's ECONOMY & JOBS rank of 328 sinks to 331 in the Appendix. There are hundreds of similar discrepancies.

I have grave doubts that the information and data in this book will stand up to any more scrutiny. My copy is on its way back to amazon.com.

Charlottesville rated the best place to live in America. We made a special trip there to check it out. Housing is ridiculously overpriced. It's a nice area, but expect to cut your house size and standard in half if you want to live here. I am surprised the authors didn't factor that in more when they rated it #1.

Sorry, I have to dissent from positive ratings this book has been receiving. It has many errors, missourced or old data, and more than a few flatulent statements. Let's mention a few.

Early in the book the authors place Pine Bluff in Arizona (though later they move it to its correct location in Arkansas). A table (p.60) detailing population growth since 1990 shows Phoenix gaining over 2 million people, Atlanta gaining nearly 3 million, and Orlando gaining over 1 million. These may be typos, but they are astronomically incorrect.

The book depends too much on the 2000 Census of Population. Aside from using stale four-year old figures, one might say the book strays from rating the quality of cities to rating the quality of people living in them. Just an observation.

Moving on, consider this outrageous statement (p. 112): The number of Starbucks in a city "is indicative of the overall quality of retail establishments." Say again?

Starbucks is a service establishment, not a retailer. A Starbucks indicates the presence of a 25 to 50 demographic that buys a $3.00 latte grande. It says little about the quality of retailers in the city.

Here's another statement: One of Louisville, Kentucky's black marks is "low public-school utilization," (p. 462) based entirely on how many children were in private schools in 2000.

Shall we permit the authors to withdraw that remark? First, San Francisco, New Orleans, and even Dubuque are shown in the book to have greater proportions of children in private schools -- yet these cities don't receive similar criticism. Second, so what? For families on the move, shouldn't there be alternatives to public schools if they're wanted?

Amazingly, Boulder, Colorado (with employers like the University of Colorado, Hewlett-Packard, and the National Bureau of Standards) received the worst ranking for ECONOMY & JOBS, while locations like Billings, Montana, and Elkhart, Indiana, received top rankings based on employment figures nearly a year old (August 2003).

Lastly, I can tell you, CATEGORICALLY, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not produce cost-of-living figures for each city, in spite of the book's claims that BLS is the source for these data. Are the figures in the book a fabrication or is this simply an incorrect source?

Perhaps a second edition is planned. Let's hope so.

Having always been interested in facts, figures, population, and demographic trends, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the nature of this book. After reading several portions of it, I think it's important to make the following observations. The authors list the metropolitan area where I grew up among the bottom 10 in the United States. Granted it's not the place it once was in its heyday, but it's still not as awful as the statistics in this book would indicate. The area is one of the fastest growing regions in Massachusetts, so I guess there are those who like living there. Speaking of "statistics", the authors should know that (1) Philadelphia is not on the Susquehanna River (it's on the Delaware River), and (2) St. Catherines-Niagara, Ontario, is obviously on the Niagara River (not the Ottawa River). If these guys can't get basic geography straight about the metro areas they're evaluating, then they certainly should have no business influencing people on where they choose to live.