Customer Reviews

Places Rated Almanac (Special Millennium Edition)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've used the Places Rated Almanac (PRA) for my last two moves. It is well worth a purchase, especially for people who may be moving to areas that are totally unresearched.

The problem that I have with PRA is the lack of an index on the culture or "mood" of the cities involved. There certainly is a difference in culture between, Charleston S.C., Joplin, MO., and Phoenix, AZ. even if the score the same on the other indices.

Moving to a new city is, in some ways,like marrying another person by mail. It's great to know the age, weight, IQ, favorite hobbies of the individual, but not knowing their behavior or quirks can be disastrous. In my case, even with the last two PRA highly rated cities that I moved to, adverse culture was among the top reasons why I ended up leaving.

What would I recommend to the publishers of PRA? Hire a part time anthropologist. Look for possible indices (such as population inflow vs. outflow, town hall meeting topics, newspaper headlines, suicide rate, major religious activities, etc.). Scale the cities based on parameters such as "citizen involvement", "cohesiveness", "tolerance", and "skeletons in the closet". This is not as "tangible" as the elevation or average temperature, but it sure would help users of the PRA match their own cultural values with candidate cities.

or a senior executive contemplating relocation, this is an outstanding reference book---with one caveat. WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT THIS BOOK 350 statistical metropolitan areas are compared on such issues as job markets, cost of living, housing markets, educational standards, crime rates, health care, recreational facilities, climate, etc. The information is presented in an unbiased manner. ONE CAVEAT The last chapter of the book sums up all the different factors and statistically derives the top ten areas to live. The assumption behind the last chapter is that all people will give all factors equal weight. That assumption is bogus, to say the least. For example, with a sixteen year old daughter we would rate educational facilities higher than transportation. On the other hand, an 80 year old retiree might rate transportation and health resources higher than education! Skip the last chapter and focus on the facts in the rest of this great reference book. If you order this book, make sure you are getting the latest latest edition of PLACES Laurence J. Stybel Board of Directors Resource Center

This book is just great. I have bought every retirement-places-rated type of book that I can get my hands on and this author is by far the best. The millennium edition is twice as big as the last edition and every subject is covered that anyone would want to know about an area; cost of living, transportation, jobs, education, climate, crime, the arts, health care, recreation. I can't wait for the next edition to come out! We're not retiring any time soon so it's helpful to really be able to study and evaluate where we are going to want to retire.

This is an outstanding book that's filled with tons of useful information. It's probably the best out there. Overall, it does a great job. Seattle, Winston-Salem, San Francisco, and Minneapolis-St. Paul are better places to live for most people than Waco, Stockton, Macon, and Lawrence-Haverhill. (Eden Prairie, MN, a suburb of the Twin Cities, was listed in 50 Great Places to Live, by the way.)

It's nice to see the truth accurately told. For example, Florida is not the sunshine state. It rains there a lot. There are more lighting strikes in Florida than any other state. Minneapolis-St. Paul is a fabulous place to live, but few people know about the tremendous quality of life there. Salt Lake City is another example of a quality, but unknown, city. And most Deep South cities get bad scores for education and quality of life.

But, as other reviewers pointed out, there are ommisions that you need to compensate for. First, the book is a statistical summary and does not mention the intangibles, such as character, for each area. These intangibles need to be considered. For example, I would never live in highly-rated Los Angeles because my experience is that the people there are rude and selfish - the land of lawsuits, the LAPD, the O.J. murders, and divorce. Yet, that may be just the lifestyle you may be looking for. Maybe you are a single, litigation lawyer. But you will not find those tidbits mentioned in the book.

Personally, I would like to know those tidbits. They may be most important. Where are the people most friendly? Is Philadelphia the City of Brotherly Love? (The answer is no.) Which suburbs of a major city are best for families? It would be nice if some essays are included, covering these intangibles.

Second, you need to adjust these scores for your own preferences. There is a chart to use for that. Young graduates might have different preferences than young families and retirees.

Finally, no matter where you are from, there's no place like home.

Most complete book we've seen. Every question I've had so far has been answered. I found the 4TH. Edition (1995) in a used bookstore and this caused me to want the most recent publication. What we know about the area we're interested in for retirement has been confirmed by this book. David Savageau thinks like we do in planning and we appreciate all his work in the writing of this book.

I have been keeping up with this publication since the late 1980s. There is no doubt that a great deal of worthwhile information is presented to the reader for each metro area. However, I am bothered by the fact that the winners among metro areas always seem to be the major population centers. Smaller cities never seem to have a chance. The presumption made in the book is that the bigger cities have the advantage because they offer more culture; more to do. But how many of us live in big cities like New York or Chicago and take the cultural benefits for granted? And yet, every day is a battle with mind-numbing traffic, high crime rates, and pollution (not adequately mentioned in the book). Yet Madison, Wisconsin and Lexington, Kentucky, two of the most beautiful and livable cities I've ever seen are within relatively easy access to metro areas with a lot of culture (Madison is not very far from Milwaukee and Chicago, Lexington is fairly close to Cincinnati). And many retirees want nothing to do with a large city with all its congestion, but will be led to believe, based on the rankings in this book, that smaller cities simply are less desirable. A fascinating book in terms of data, but very skewed toward the larger metro areas.

This is an excellent statistical reference for evaluating and comparing N. American communities on the basis on the nine categories listed. But a key ingredient of 'Places Rated' should also include a ranking of the general 'quality of life' above and beyond these nine statistical categories.

For example, I live in the Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, given an overall ranking of 13. Relative to the 350 other communmities evaluated, 13 is clearly a superior ranking. But the real 'quality of life' issues of this region go beyond these nine categories. For example, San Bernardino, a community of approximately 180,000, lists 39.7% of its citizens on some sort of public assistance. This statistic was published in the San Bernardino newspaper during the past two years. The impact of every 2 of 5 citizens on welfare out of a community of 180,000, suggests a social climate not measurable in any of the above referenced nine categories, but may influence significantly the '! quality of life' in this region. This is not to suggest these citizens are necessarily 'lawless derelicts'. If they were, the crime category would reflect this condition. Nevertheless, their socioeconomic circumstance may impact where other more fortunate citizens shop, travel, when and how frequently they shop, what public functions they attend, etc., thus, impacting the quality of life of this region for many.

Further, today was a 'first stage' smog alert day. Environmental variables; air, water, noise, etc., are not factored into a 'quality of life' standard. For example, nowhere does 'Places Rated' account for the significant number of days which are heavy smog days in this region. Nor can we necessarily assume that all metropolitan regions produce and live with the same levels of air pollution. Air pollution is, however, an integral component of any quality of life standard. Air pollution, taken by itself may be sufficiently significant to encourage citizens to! resettle elsewhere.

Finally, a congestion component m! ay necessarily impact the quality of life for many. Given a high ranking for its climate, the Riverside-San Bernardino region is home to thousands of mobile homes, boats, assorted RVs, off-road-vehicles and two or three commute vehicles per many families. Freeway traffic may be stop and go occasionally even at 2 am. Congestion is fierce, frustrating and occasionaly even violent.

In summary, a 'quality of life' category might signifcantly influence the current metropolitan rankings of 'Places Rated'.

These books are full of extremely helpful information, but I warn my fellow readers to take a place's culture into account before making a life-changing move. The books will not help you here. My husband and I bought a previous edition of Places Rated and devoured it while looking for a place to relocate from Los Angeles. We settled on a southern capital that seemed to have everything going for it, including consistently high rankings in Places Rated and every other city ranking we could find. Unfortunately, a city that looks great on paper may not be the place for you. Despite having lived in several states, we were unprepared for the surprising difficulties we experienced as "yankees" living in the south. From petty social and work discrimination to routinely being screwed over by one business after another hired to work on our home or car, etc., it became evident that we were identified as "yankees" on sight and treated accordingly. So much for southern hospitality! I assure you that we did our best to fit in and make friends, as we have successfully done in every other region of the country. After 2-1/2 years of this, we sold our home for a loss and got our "unsweet tea" out of there. Perhaps we were naive, not realizing that the yankee business is still such a potent issue in the south, but we will make future relocation choices with this experience in mind.

I found this book to be very helpful in the area of comparison, that is I could easily compare the statistics for those few places that I personally had in mind. The areas that summarize a particular category are well laid out. The graphics in the Climate section are helpful, although I did notice a significant mistake (I think)... Those of you looking at the two Charlestons ( SC and WV), it looks like the Climatic graphics and statistics were switched for these two cities. Quite a shocker to see that Charleston, SC gets 32 inches of snow a year! If anyone connected to the publisher can confirm that with me, it would be appreciated. It is also very helpful to have previous editions so that you can compare changes in a locations scores for the 1997 edition vs. the 1993 or 1989 edition. I have collected all 3. Overall, a very good source.

It's tough to read a book of someone's opinions on where to live as its really a heartfelt decision each person needs to make for themselves. But most of this book is straight statistics, such as weather and crime. The book is big and leaves enough room for each metro area so you can read the climate graphs without too much eyestrain. It's the best book on deciding where to move that I found. I took tons of notes from this book, and it actually helped me pick an entirely new place to live than the ones I had originally thought of! The only section I didn't like was the arts and culture section. I'm into the artsy scene, but the authors rated cities based on number of symphonies and orchestras and operas - who goes to these anymore??