Best Places (sic) to Live, 2010, Money Magazine

[Phoenix]

I LOVE these lists...they are perfect to know where NOT to move.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2010/top100/index4.html

Rank - City - Population

1 Eden Prairie, MN 64,000
2 Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 155,000
3 Newton, MA 82,000
4 Bellevue, WA 124,000
5 McKinney, TX 125,000
6 Fort Collins, CO 141,000
7 Overland Park, KS 175,000
8 Fishers, IN 69,000
9 Ames, IA 60,000
10 Rogers, AR 57,000
11 Plymouth, MN 76,000
12 Highlands Ranch, CO 98,000
13 Woodbury, MN 58,000
14 Carmel, IN 67,000
15 Eagan, MN 64,000
16 Allen, TX 84,000
17 Shawnee, KS 61,000
18 South Jordan, UT 51,000
19 Broomfield, CO 55,000
20 Apple Valley, MN 50,000
21 Missouri City, TX 75,000
22 Irvine, CA 208,000
23 Cary, NC 130,000
24 Rowlett, TX 58,000
25 Gaithersburg, MD 59,000
26 O'Fallon, MO 77,000
27 Lee's Summit, MO 89,000
28 Waltham, MA 60,000
29 Abington, PA 54,000
30 Centreville, VA 54,000
31 Rockville, MD 61,000
32 West Chester, OH 60,000
33 Loveland, CO 66,000
34 Franklin, NJ 61,000
35 Edmond, OK 83,000
36 Gilbert, AZ 216,000
37 Mentor, OH 52,000
38 Yorba Linda, CA 66,000
39 Brookline, MA 58,000
40 Chapel Hill, NC 54,000
41 Clarkstown, NY 83,000
42 Amherst, NY 115,000
43 Bolingbrook, IL 71,000
44 Coral Springs, FL 126,000
45 Orem, UT 94,000
46 Ann Arbor, MI 116,000
47 Alexandria, VA 145,000
48 Coconut Creek, FL 50,000
49 Blue Springs, MO 56,000
50 Waukesha, WI 68,000
51 Rio Rancho, NM 82,000
52 Weymouth, MA 53,000
53 White Plains, NY 57,000
54 Naperville, IL 143,000
55 West Hartford, CT 63,000
56 Mount Prospect, IL 54,000
57 Piscataway, NJ 53,000
58 Arvada, CO 107,000
59 Arlington Heights, IL 73,000
60 St. Peters, MO 56,000
61 West Jordan, UT 95,000
62 Meridian, ID 67,000
63 Pleasanton, CA 67,000
64 Shoreline, WA 54,000
65 Rocklin, CA 53,000
66 Franklin, TN 58,000
67 Stillwater, OK 53,000
68 Iowa City, IA 73,000
69 Eau Claire, WI 66,000
70 Norman, OK 109,000
71 Scottsdale, AZ 235,000
72 Wellington, FL 55,000
73 Wayne, NJ 53,000
74 Bismarck, ND 60,000
75 West Des Moines, IA 55,000
76 Roswell, GA 96,000
77 Sioux Falls, SD 161,000
78 Stamford, CT 119,000
79 Millcreek, PA 54,000
80 St. George, UT 78,000
81 Broken Arrow, OK 93,000
82 New Rochelle, NY 75,000
83 Warwick, RI 84,000
84 Bristol, CT 61,000
85 Chesapeake, VA 220,000
86 Fargo, ND 97,000
87 Hamden, CT 58,000
88 Ramapo, NY 116,000
89 Middletown, NJ 69,000
90 Norwalk, CT 83,000
91 Suffolk, VA 82,000
92 Hillsboro, OR 94,000
93 Owensboro, KY 56,000
94 Nashua, NH 87,000
95 Madison, WI 233,000
96 Appleton, WI 71,000
97 Grand Forks, ND 53,000
98 Beaverton, OR 92,000
99 Idaho Falls, ID 54,000
100 Mount Pleasant, SC 68,000

[AndreaGail]

12 Highlands Ranch, CO 98,000


:sicko isn't tract housing great
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/will%20this%20highlands%20ranch%20image%20work.JPG

any of the mountain towns are 10x better than those towns 5 Colorado towns mentioned maybe with the exception of fort collins

[Ponce]

Good, my town here in Oregon is still a secret.........shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[zusn]

Good, my town here in Oregon is still a secret.........shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Your town was set to make the list, until someone drove by and saw your sign. ;D

[Grand Master Melon]

Woo hoo, I really want to raise my kid in chilly Minnesota. Not.

The two towns from Arizona are not very great and are just part of the overall Phoenix sprawl.

[Heimdhal]

yeah, i wouldnt particularly want to be in any of the places listed in florida. Wellington is getting totaly overrun with urban sprawl, skyrocketing cost of living and soccer moms in their big SUVs. Not to mention the cancer clusters popping up just otuside of wellington in the acerage/loxahatchee area

[Ponce]

Yeah Zusn, you can even see it in that Google street thing.......

[chad]

eden prarie is number one? eden prarie is endless strip malls and tract housing right next to 35e. wtf? :oo-->

[learn2swim]

I would live in Whitefish, MT --- if I had the chance..

[Bigjon]

eden prarie is number one? eden prarie is endless strip malls and tract housing right next to 35e. wtf? :oo-->


Eden Prairie is SW of the SW corner of the 494 loop. It's a pretty area, hilly and wooded, but not as many lakes as Minnetonka directly to the north.

[the riot act]

yeah, i wouldnt particularly want to be in any of the places listed in florida. Wellington is getting totaly overrun with urban sprawl, skyrocketing cost of living and soccer moms in their big SUVs. Not to mention the cancer clusters popping up just otuside of wellington in the acerage/loxahatchee area


You know Hemidhal this rumor has NO BASIS IN FACT. My Hematologist/Cancer Dr. has 6 of the effected people as clients. He told me when questioned that he has told his clients to look for something else as a cause. But these over-reactive soccer moms refuse to feed their kids healthy food, get the cell phone out of their ears, and yadda, yadda.

Unfortunately, they need to find someone else to blame for their stupidly. I've lived in the acreage along with my neighbors for over 20 years and I only see the Hemo guy for something that uncle sam gave me when I was in the service.

Repeating unproven rumors by people who do not live in the area really isn't productive for those who may wish to sell their large property's.

Bottom line it is really stupid to use a well drilled to only 30 feet for any use(well maybe watering the non eatable's). The first question I had when I bought here was. How deep is the well? I then had my own driller come in and drill to 120 feet. Perfect water at that level. To use a 30 foot well is blatant stupidity under any circumstance. You are just not deep enough to get good processed water. No one to blame here but the owners themselves for their own stupidity.

[chad]

eden prarie is number one? eden prarie is endless strip malls and tract housing right next to 35e. wtf? :oo-->


Eden Prairie is SW of the SW corner of the 494 loop. It's a pretty area, hilly and wooded, but not as many lakes as Minnetonka directly to the north.


ah, you're right, i had it confused with burnsville.

[Heimdhal]

yeah, i wouldnt particularly want to be in any of the places listed in florida. Wellington is getting totaly overrun with urban sprawl, skyrocketing cost of living and soccer moms in their big SUVs. Not to mention the cancer clusters popping up just otuside of wellington in the acerage/loxahatchee area


You know Hemidhal this rumor has NO BASIS IN FACT. My Hematologist/Cancer Dr. has 6 of the effected people as clients. He told me when questioned that he has told his clients to look for something else as a cause. But these over-reactive soccer moms refuse to feed their kids healthy food, get the cell phone out of their ears, and yadda, yadda.

Unfortunately, they need to find someone else to blame for their stupidly. I've lived in the acreage along with my neighbors for over 20 years and I only see the Hemo guy for something that uncle sam gave me when I was in the service.

Repeating unproven rumors by people who do not live in the area really isn't productive for those who may wish to sell their large property's.

Bottom line it is really stupid to use a well drilled to only 30 feet for any use(well maybe watering the non eatable's). The first question I had when I bought here was. How deep is the well? I then had my own driller come in and drill to 120 feet. Perfect water at that level. To use a 30 foot well is blatant stupidity under any circumstance. You are just not deep enough to get good processed water. No one to blame here but the owners themselves for their own stupidity.





Thans for the info.

My brother lives out there with his wife and three kids and I know they were/are freaking out pretty bad. My wife and I were looking at houses out there be cause they were going pretty cheap for a while, but we held off to see what would happen with this "cluster" thing. I think you're right though, its the life style choices and daily living habbits, but there does seem to be an oddly disproportionate amount of kids developing problems out there.


My paid a stupid high price for his house, which immediatley lost over half its value when the market bubble popped, now its even lower because of the perceived cancer threat. You cant give those houses away out there now.

[Saul Mine]

What knothead made up this list? Gilbert, AZ is neither better nor worse than any of the other communities loosely described as "Phoenix", except maybe that it's newer. (Almost everything you can see around Phoenix is less than twenty years old.) But don't call a cab, because the tracts were specifically laid out to make it difficult to cruise through any neighborhood. Every visitor has to have exact directions to your house.

Scottsdale is three miles wide and thirty miles long. The north end has more golf courses per acre than any place I know of. The south end is just another collection of bars and strip joints. But they are really nice bars and strip joints.