Customer Reviews

50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

We visited 10 of the communities listed, and are quite familiar with seven more of them. First, the authors seem to have a preference for non-pedestrian-friendly, car-oriented suburban sprawl. Second, I don't know where they got their info. We went so far as to move to one of the communities listed in the book, and after we got there we found out that the "excellent public schools" cited by these authors were ranked 48th in the country, and that there was very little for children to do. Health care was rated 47th in the country and was subpar, expensive and difficult to obtain. Not only that, the community was not friendly or welcoming to outsiders, and it was a most decidedly un-family-oriented environment. We stayed a year and left this town. We had not gone only on the basis of this book's recommendation, of course, but we had taken it into consideration as part of the total picture and it turned out to be extremely misleading.

Use with caution. If you want to relocate somewhere, visit the place, talk to folks, get the facts, trust your own judgment. Where to live is way too big a decision to trust to subjective opinions.

Please take note of the publication date - 1997. This means all the data is at least 5 years old (probably much older due to the time lag between gathering data and publication). Therefore information such as housing prices, job markets etc are all woefully out of date. It may have some interesting information, but don't bother using this book if you're looking for information on job situation, real estate or even taxes.

I was excited to receive this book, but hadn't noticed in the product description that it was last published in 1997, and since it's nearly 2004, this book was not very helpful. The data is time sensitive (cost of living, populations, tax rates, home costs, school info, etc). Each city review had a nice "contact" list at the end, but one major thing missing were website addresses (which would've helped locate more recent data). Only the addresses & phone numbers were listed, and most were not toll-free numbers. Shame on me for not noticing the publication date, shame on Amazon.com for recommending it as a match with "The Places Rated Almanac" (the book found me, I wasn't looking for it specifically).

This book has a lot of information. Some of it is very quantitative and objective but a good deal of it is personal opinion. The opinions are what allow the book to offer far more depth than the Places Rated Almanac but they also make for a somewhat unreliable set of "facts." What I like best about the book is that it touches on almost every aspect of living in each of the cities profiled. Medical care, the job market, recreational opportunities, and much more are explored.

Because a lot of the information is anecdotal in nature, however, your mileage could vary considerably from the people they spoke to. I have visited multiple cities they list in the book and found that beauty was very much in the eye of the beholder. This book is a worthwhile resource but don't just jump in and assume that their recommendation will mean you would enjoy living there.

If you are considering moving, I would suggest purchasing both this book and the Places Rated Almanac to draw up a short list of candidates. Then go there and do as many things as possible that you would if you lived in that city. Go to a movie, check out the local mall, look at a few houses, etc. Get an idea of what it's like to be there on a daily basis. You won't get that from this book or any other but Fabulous Places just might help you find a place to start looking.

This is an outstanding book! As a valuable companion to Places Rated Almanac, it presents a good picture of some of the best places to live in the United States. Use this book to help find a good place for your family to live.

The harsh comments from the reader in Minneapolis need to be taken in perspective. That reader said that some of the numerical data are incorrectly listed. But all books heavy in numerical data have those PRINTING errors. I can't tell you how many college texts I've seen with numerical printing errors. But just because a math problem number in a math book is printed wrong, it doesn't mean that the mathematical truths are no longer true. Condemning information that is obviously excellent due to printing errors is unfair. The information in this book is valuable.

For example, my wife and I spent two years deciding on which community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area to live in. We studied school districts, recreation, crime, and many intangibles. Living in Minnesota made it possible to learn first-hand - much more than the general statistical summaries listed in a publication like Places Rates Almanac.

We decided on Eden Prairie. The schools have won numerous awards and have among the top-5 test scores in the state. The city was carefully planned to integrate recreation, nature, and family living. Our home is walking distance of two supurb parks, near a regional bike trail, within a short bike ride of a great recreational lake, and a longer bike ride from half-a-dozen other excellent parks and lakes, including a regional preserve. (There are miles of paved trails to bike, walk, jog, or roller-blade.) There is more to offer, too.

To our surprise, we later discovered that Eden Prairie is one of the 50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family. The book got it right. We were very impressed that the book listed the things that took us months to research.

50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family details many important facts that you cannot find in most other publications.

And by the way, the Minneapolis school district has the second-lowest test scores and the worst crime rate in the state. Minneapolis still ranks among the best in the U.S. when compared to other large U.S. cities, but nowhere near the best Minnesota suburban schools districts: Eden Prairie, Plymouth, Wayzata, West Bloomington, Apple Valley, Minnetonka, Hopkins, Edina, etc.

Reading a general publication, such as Places Rated Almanac, groups the whole Twin Cities area together. 50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family reaches deeper into specific suburbs around the country.

I have only one complaint about this book. It should be expanded to 100 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family. There are too many good places - some neighboring suburbs to the ones already included - to leave out.

The book is put together very well and is easy to read. Now for the negatives. Most of the information is old which makes it unusable. It's OK for a starting point, but you'll be going back to the internet for up-to-date information.

All aspects that might affect the happiness of a family are listed for each of the 50 locations. Great schools, medical care, neighbohoods, sports, family fun, economic outlook, climate, taxes, home prices, communitiy activities, etc. More importantly, author captured the differences in culture and overall feeling one might have while in each city/town. I was raised in Reston, Va. and read this book before relocating to Plano, TX (both towns listed in this book). Both are everything the author said they would be. To be closer to family, I am choosing the research triangle area of NC for our next home. As described in this book, I'm sure it will live up to my expectations.

I've found numerous, easy to spot, factual mistakes in this book. I've been looking primarily at the climate data displayed in handy tables for each city and have been dismayed by the obvious errors such as average low temperatures listed as higher than average high temperatures, the elevation of Colorado Springs listed as 420' when in reality it's closer to 6000', at least two annual total rainfalls listed as less than the average rainfall for one month, etc. I've found all this and more, and I've only looked at five cities so far. Based on this, I don't trust that they've gotten the facts correct for quality of schools, recreational activities, cost of living, commute times, etc. I bought this book hoping it could be a factual resource about cities around the nation but I'm left unwilling to believe anything in it that I didn't already know.

This would be an excellent and thorough book were it not nine years old. The information on cost of living is useless because so much has changed.

This book describes optimal places to live and retire. The author
describes the quality of life, local economy/jobs , entertainment and a plethora of other concerns. Fountain Hills, Arizona is listed for its jobs, no state income tax and quality of lifestyle. Gainesville Florida is listed as the most livable
city in the USA. Huntington, NY is listed as a preferred
suburb with good schools, beaches and vacation spots.
Charlottesville, VA. is praised for its scenary, affordable
housing, schools and educational centers. This book is a solid
value if you are researching an area unfamiliar to you.
Before you move anywhere, visit the locality, speak to residents and make up your own mind independent of what any book conveys.