The top 10 cities for families:
1 Overland Park, KS
2 Madison, WI
3 Plano, TX
4 Sioux Falls, SD
5 Virginia Beach, VA
6 Lincoln, NE
7 Aurora, IL
8 Omaha, NE
9 Colorado Springs, CO
10 Fremont, CA
Where Atlanta ranks:
— Overall, 120
— Affordability, 84
— Education, 103
— Health and safety, 145
— Family fun, 12
— Socioeconomics, 136
Source: WalletHub
Where Atlanta ranks:
— Overall, 120
— Affordability, 84
— Education, 103
— Health and safety, 145
— Family fun, 12
— Socioeconomics, 136
Source: WalletHub
This just doesn’t seem right: Atlanta ranked below Rancho Cucamonga? Below Tulsa? Below – gulp – Jersey City?
Is this study really saying that there are 119 cities in the United States that are better for families than Atlanta?
Maybe we should demand a recount.
But in the latest calculation from the list-happy folks at WalletHub, a weighted compilation of what the company says are 36 important factors in deciding where to locate a family, Atlanta checks in at a mediocre 120 out of 150.
Among the metrics, WalletHub toted up things like the rate of divorce, the number of two-parent families, the share of families living in poverty, the share getting food stamps, the unemployment and foreclosure rates and packaged it all into a category called "Socioeconomic Environment."
They did similar calculations in the other categories (for example, “Family Fun” includes the number of parks and playgrounds but also average commuting times).
At the top of the chart, Overland Park, Kansas. At the bottom – at least we can take some of that ol' schadenfreude in this: Birmingham.
By the way, Rancho Cucamonga – which is probably just lovely, we don't know – ranks 45th.
WalletHub is a personal finance web site, focusing on credit scores and consumer advice. Based in Washington, D.C., they also produce a steady stream of rankings consistent with their focus on comparing America's cities as places to send your kids to school, to live, work, play, make money or spend it, retire or move to after school. Whatever.
In the rankings today, they found that
• Madison, Wis., has the most playgrounds.
• Irvine, Calif., has the lowest violent-crime rate (40 times lower than in Detroit).
• Scottsdale, Ariz., has the highest median family annual income (adjusted for cost of living).
• Fremont, Calif., has the lowest divorce rate, and (surprise?) Cleveland is the city with the highest.
• Irvine, Calif., has the lowest percentage of families receiving food stamps (and Detroit has the highest).
• Overland Park, has the lowest percentage of families living below the poverty line. Detroit, again, is at the wrong end of the metric.
About the Author
