canada

A previous reviewer complained of a liberal slant to Cities Ranked & Rated. Faithfully playing the part of the "I haven't read it, but I'm gonna condemn this communist filth anyhow" conservative, the reviewer's complaints were based on reading a USA Today article and not the book itself. I bought a copy (of the book) and I'm just not seeing a lot of politics here. I am, however, seeing a lot of really useful information based on objective, statistical information (including the unfairly derided quality of life statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and other agencies). I looked at the authors bios and found a link to www.bestplaces.net, which includes an interactive questionaire that helps you pick your ideal city. It appears to be based on the same data sets as the book. I would recommend anyone who suspects political bias on the part of the authors to go to this site and find out where their personal preferences would actually take them. I was surprised by what it told me.

Ignore the previous two reviews, not sure what these guys were up to or why. They went to deep dark corners to unearth "errors". Some may be true but some of their assertions, like no published cost of living data by city, are just plain wrong. I know -- I am a professional market researcher.

For 17 bucks, this book makes a handy reference for my profession and is a top resource if I ever decide to move. Authors have done a good job assembling otherwise hard-to-get information in a nice package.

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.