According to Money magazine.
I have no plans on moving to any of these places, but it's an interesting list.
Eden Prairie, MN
Columbia / Ellicott City, MD
Newton, MA
Bellevue, WA
McKinney, TX
Fort Collins, CO
Overland Park, KS
Fishers, IN
Ames, IA
Rogers, AR
Yeah, I don't know how McKinney made anybody's list much less a list in Money. So I'm presuming the others are just as lame.
Fishers, Indiana (and most of the Indianapolis area) is decent. Much better than the Detroit area, where I'm stuck right now.
I can verify, Eden Prairie is NOT a decent city. They have nothing better to do than waste my time by making me show up in court over superfluous tint tickets that they discharge and then "mysteriously" lose all the paperwork for, so I have to go to court, not once, not twice but THREE TIMES. Eff Eden Prairie. They also seem to forget to notice the burgeoning "ghetto" as a lot of low income families/n'er do-wells flood the city from West Bloomington on the promise of better schools.
What? No Mayberry?
not one in ohio...le sigh...
I'll sell you EP for cheap. Take their police dept with you.
Top ten by what criteria?
In reply to stuart in mn:
yea really. Newton ma isnt bad but theyre moonbat ridiculous in a lot of ways... they just built the taj mahal of high schools... $200 MILLION 
state subsidized of course.
I only know anything about one of them, Bellevue, WA. Of all the areas around Seattle that's not where I would live. If I could find a job across the sound from Seattle I'd move there in a heartbeat, either in Kitsap county, or even on the Olympic Pennisula.
I've driven through Ames, IA, but that's about it.
TJ wrote: I've driven through Ames, IA, but that's about it.
Its the butthole of the american west...nothing there but a flashing red light and a truck stop - best fried balogna sandwiches for 100 miles? Maybe. One of the top ten cities in america? 
"c'mon guys, you just made me GAG"
Overland Park, Kansas and Rogers Arkansas are nearly identical. I swear they were both planned by the same people-even the buildings are made of the same materials.
Rogers actually has a Phillips 66 with a full time 5-star chef on duty and a gourmet grocery and deli.
My brother lives in Newton MA and he's never said anything about it good or bad.
I'm most familiar with Columbia/EC MD and I don't know what the appeal is. Suburban DC sprawl, overbuilt, too much traffic, too many traffic lights, too many housing 'communities' where your next door neighbors are just ten or fifteen feet away. And every 30 seconds a Southwest flight passes overhead and drowns out the conversation. What's to like?
NYG95GA wrote: What? No Mayberry?
to much crime....
Betty Lou Lynn, 83, was mugged and had her wallet stolen in her new hometown of Mount Airy, N.C., in April. Lynn is the actress who played Barney Fife's best girl, Thelma Lou, in the Andy Griffith TV show and had lived in Los Angeles until she became alarmed at the city's crime rate. She decided in 2007 to move to the quieter, peaceful Mount Airy, which was Griffith's birthplace and the model for the TV town of Mayberry. [USA Today-Mount Airy News, 4-30-10]
Interestingly, four other Minnesota cities are in the top 20 of this list: Plymouth, 11; Woodbury, 13; Eagan, 15; and Apple Valley, 20 (all cities including Eden Prairie are suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul.)
BEST PLACES TO LIVE Money's list of America's best small cities http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2010/index.html
Why is Eden Prairie No. 1 this year? Not only is it family-friendly, it has a dynamite economy too.
At 5.1%, its unemployment rate is nearly one percentage point below the county rate and more than four points below the national average. It helps when you've got 50,000 jobs right in town.
Major employers include Fortune 500 trucking company C.H. Robinson, hearing-aid maker Starkey Labs, and the Minnesota Vikings, whose practice facility and front office are here. As for fiscal strength, Moody's gives the town a perfect AAA bond rating.
While it doesn't have much of a downtown, there's plenty of outer beauty: from gently rolling hills to 17 lakes that residents flock to year-round for swimming and ice skating. Town parks are laced with 125 miles of running, hiking, and biking trails.
No wonder residents rank among the healthiest people in the nation. Add in top-notch schools and safe streets and you've got a place that's tough to beat. --Ismat Mangla
So they ranked them on statistics alone? So Podunkville, Anywhere will always come out on top cause statistics prove it?
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area isn't exactly Podunkville.
However, any list of top 20 anything is pretty pointless...it's based on one person's opinion and naturally everyone else is going to disagree.
stuart in mn wrote: The Minneapolis-St. Paul area isn't exactly Podunkville.
Sure it is, it's not in Texas is it? So even if it isn't exactly Podunkville it's in an undesirable neighborhood. As we all know in real estate it's location, Location, LOCATION!
stuart in mn wrote: Top ten by what criteria?
Boring-arsed 1950s Ammuricun "White Picket Fence" daydreaming, it seems. Low crime, low unemployment, and schools where the .0001% of the student body who's non-white is an Asian kid (because they're so good at mathmatics, right?)
Bah. Gimme the real world instead. A little more "dangerous", a lot more interesting.
friedgreencorrado wrote:stuart in mn wrote: Top ten by what criteria?Boring-arsed 1950s Ammuricun "White Picket Fence" daydreaming, it seems. Low crime, low unemployment, and schools where the .0001% of the student body who's non-white is an Asian kid (because they're *so good* at mathmatics, right?) Bah. Gimme the real world instead. A little more "dangerous", a lot more interesting.
Now you're talking. I'll take the Picket Fence community any day over some sort of inner-city high crime, low moral environment. And if you've got kids you will too.
carguy123 wrote:friedgreencorrado wrote:Now you're talking. I'll take the Picket Fence community any day over some sort of inner-city high crime, low moral environment. And if you've got kids you will too.stuart in mn wrote: Top ten by what criteria?Boring-arsed 1950s Ammuricun "White Picket Fence" daydreaming, it seems. Low crime, low unemployment, and schools where the .0001% of the student body who's non-white is an Asian kid (because they're *so good* at mathmatics, right?) Bah. Gimme the real world instead. A little more "dangerous", a lot more interesting.
Hey, your mileage varies. I brought up my daughter (now 19) in Atlanta Metro, and she's turned out OK. No rapes, no drug addiction, and no wistful longing for a past era that's gone (if it ever existed in the first place).
I don't mean it as a "flame", dude. Just saying that there are some of us that choose different paths through life.
Us, and her b/f & friend at Rd. Atl, Mitty 2010. Jeez, she even met some of the Hongs that weekend! Now that's a cultural thing she'll never understand if she doen't take Anthopology 101 next quarter.. 
Columbia, Maryland? Terminal gridlock in single-occupant luxury SUVs says it all. I wouldn't live there for free rent.
Ditto that - I lived fifteen minutes from Columbia. I can't imagine why it would make anyone's 'top...' list of anything.
I find it hilarious that they rate it on unemployment rate. Sure EP has a low unemployment rate. The MASSIVE immigrant community (Seriously, like half of the immigrated Somalians in MN live in EP, right off Anderson Lakes Pkwy.) is actually for the most part, gainfully employed. Tons of em take the jobs that used to be taken by the other immigrant populations (hispanic, russian, etc). Easy to get those jobs when you already know half the ones working there. Couple that with the fact that you have pretty much all of MN sports living in that general vicinity (check out Bearpath) and you've got a rate that's hard to beat.
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