  Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 307 Registered: 10-2005 |
latest rankings list: http://www.bestplaces.net/docs /studies/crar_list.aspx | ||
Quozl Member Username: Quozl Post Number: 580 Registered: 07-2005 |
They combine Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI together and they only rank 344? Must be all those Livonia Nazi's that drove the ranking down! | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 1132 Registered: 06-2006 |
here's how the Michigan cities/areas fared...it's cool to see a Michigan city at #5 : ) 5 Ann Arbor, MI 140 Holland-Grand Haven, MI 146Muskegon-Norton Shores, MI 147Niles-Benton Harbor, MI 190Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, MI 213Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI 234Kalamazoo-Portage, MI 237Lansing-East Lansing, MI 239Battle Creek, MI 242Jackson, MI 270Monroe, MI 304Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, MI 330Bay City, MI 335Flint, MI 344Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI (Message edited by thejesus on May 09, 2007) | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 1133 Registered: 06-2006 |
"Must be all those Livonia Nazi's that drove the ranking down!" sieg heil!!! | ||
Quozl Member Username: Quozl Post Number: 581 Registered: 07-2005 |
Ah Karl, front and center please! You have some 'splaining to do... | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 9093 Registered: 10-2003 |
So in summary, beyond AA this state sucks. Can't really disagree. | ||
Fury13 Member Username: Fury13 Post Number: 1631 Registered: 10-2003 |
Curious groupings. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills? | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 9095 Registered: 10-2003 |
I saw that too and wondered about it. | ||
Kronprinz Member Username: Kronprinz Post Number: 397 Registered: 12-2006 |
I'd rather wait tables in Petoskey than be the mayor of most of the places in the top 100 | ||
Wazootyman Member Username: Wazootyman Post Number: 203 Registered: 02-2006 |
This strikes me as just another BS list that serves no purpose other than to find its way to afternoon talk radio. I love Metro Detroit and make it perfectly clear to everyone I know. I'd like to know how you can reduce an entire community into a number rank. "So in summary, beyond AA this state sucks. Can't really disagree." Then get the hell out. A lot of what's wrong with this state/region is people like you who have a negative attitude about everything. Also, I'd really like to know how Muskegon is above most of Metro Detroit. My SO's family is from there, and I visit all the time. Besides a pretty decent beach, there is very little desireable about the area...it's all semi-rural housing and an absolutely dead downtown. | ||
Bumble Member Username: Bumble Post Number: 81 Registered: 11-2004 |
quote: I've been thinking positively all day, and I'm just sure that Ford will add at least two new jobs because of it. | ||
Charlottepaul Member Username: Charlottepaul Post Number: 986 Registered: 10-2006 |
Even Flint ranked above Detroit! Not the news that you want to hear, LOL. | ||
6nois Member Username: 6nois Post Number: 213 Registered: 11-2006 |
I think its odd that Saginaw and Bay City are different cities. Normally on lists like this its the Saginaw-Bay City-Midland metro area. The groupings are really strange. I consider that most would group Farmington Hills with Detroit and it wouldn't be in its own group. The whole thing is kinda strange, but whatever. | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 2756 Registered: 02-2005 |
Ann Arbor has quality of life, no doubt. Good city services. Safety. A decent amount of urban fabric (i.e. Main Street + dozens of walkable and beautiful city blocks). Tons of parks creating a nice mix of city and nature. A good mix of housing stock and prices/options. TRANSIT. JOBS. One of the world's best universities. Top 5 might be a bit generous (I'd have to think there are 10-20 places that are better to live in), but it is the only truly functional CITY in Michigan. Sure Farmington and Troy are pretty functional, but they ain't cities...and to someone who wants to live in an actual city, they are downright inhospitable. Ann Arbor, though, is still too small to be considered truly great, and it is too reliant on students, especially seasonal out of state students. Ann Arbor really, really needs to grow its center city population (meaning more year-round residents who have already graduated). Obviously most of the central neighborhoods are locked up as rental districts for students. That's fine. What I'm getting at is that the space between State St. and Main St. needs more residential high-rises and more mixed-use buildings. The new residential development just west of Main on Huron (11 stories I think) is a step in the right direction. A2 is as close as Michigan gets to a 24-hour city, but it is still obnoxiously dead late at night (except for outside of Rick's with all my fellow students). Ann Arbor's population is growing. But tons of the development is outward and low-density, and this needs to stop. The city would be truly great if downtown development were prioritized. ---- Detroit will one day rise on that list. More neighborhood development, better schools, and getting Livonia out of that grouping will do it. --- The collectivity of the Grosse Pointes should have been on that list. They would have easily been top 50. | ||
Dnvn522 Member Username: Dnvn522 Post Number: 245 Registered: 11-2004 |
The Holland-Grand Haven & Niles-Benton Harbor pairings are strange too. Midland isn't even on the list. So apparently Detroit is better than Midland at least!  | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 737 Registered: 04-2006 |
The thing about Ann Arbor is that it's exactly what the people who live there want it to be. I prefer larger cities (or at least being closer to a larger city), but I also like Ann Arbor for what it is. "But tons of the development is outward and low-density, and this needs to stop." Didn't they implement a greenspace around the city and township? | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 2758 Registered: 02-2005 |
Well said. Regarding the greenbelt...it can only do so much. It creates a nice buffer on the east, and the Huron River is a nice buffer on the north, but development still skips right over this, and beyond the city limits, into the various townships out by US23 or down toward Saline. Same with west of A2 way out on Jackson Rd. Somebody needs to make a move and build something sweet in downtown A2, great enough to get graduates to want to stay and live in A2. This will create momentum, and hopefully others to follow. | ||
Gumby Member Username: Gumby Post Number: 1582 Registered: 11-2003 |
/quote{Even Flint ranked above Detroit! Not the news that you want to hear, LOL.} There is no reason to take pot shots at us up here. We are all in the same boat. | ||
Gumby Member Username: Gumby Post Number: 1583 Registered: 11-2003 |
quote: There is no reason to take pot shots at us up here. We are all in the same boat. | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 1422 Registered: 01-2005 |
I think the people who create these lists need to get a life. No place is perfect for everyone, and every place has something going for it. I see I'm living in #154. Tough stuff, I love it. But I love Detroit, too, AND Ann Arbor, AND Bellingham, WA, AND...........etc. | ||
Deandub11 Member Username: Deandub11 Post Number: 106 Registered: 05-2006 |
Yea I wouldnt put too much credence in this...between the pairings and then the formula.... | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 47 Registered: 02-2007 |
I wonder if the people behind this are U of M grads. AA has always been 5 or 6 as long as I've seen this report. All the others drift in and out of the top twenty. Has anyone here ever heard of Columbus INDIANA??????? | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 9101 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: I am guessing that AA fits well in many primary categories such as education, crime, unemployment, income, etc. | ||
Carolcb Member Username: Carolcb Post Number: 622 Registered: 11-2006 |
Columbus Indiana is actually a very artsy place NE of Bloomington IN which is also a very nice place to live - honest. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 48 Registered: 02-2007 |
Chicago-joliet plunged around 100 or so places. I trust nothing like this unless the criteria and weighting are thoroughly spelled out | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 2459 Registered: 10-2003 |
And Richmond, Virginia at #30? I mean, it's not a bad place, but #30??? | ||
Carolcb Member Username: Carolcb Post Number: 624 Registered: 11-2006 |
The city I live in is in top 25 and I would trade it ANYDAY and move back to Wayne County in a heartbeat. Enough said! | ||
Club_boss Member Username: Club_boss Post Number: 84 Registered: 12-2006 |
I lived in Ann Arbor for 21 years. Other than the parking issue, nothing negative comes to mind. The students (and their parents) support the merchants in Ann Arbor, first class - no less; without them (or the university) Ann Arbor would be a dramatically different city. I had a business on Main Street (and William) and if the students were out on spring break, or whatever break, (seemed like one break after another) business suffered terribly, we would miss them. City parking is pathetic and has been for years. Housing is a tad pricy. Nights can be quiet on Main Street, students or not. The fall and winter are the best times to clean up; I mean business can very good in these seasons. I agree with most of what Mackinaw stated. Still, I cannot believe Ann Arbor is one of the top 5 cities in America. | ||
Rampartstreetnorth Member Username: Rampartstreetnorth Post Number: 47 Registered: 07-2006 |
The criteria change every year, and therefore so do the rankings. For instance, this years's number 18, Flagstaff, Arizona, was number 244 in 2004. The city obviously didn't change that much in three years, so it's got to be changes in the measuring stick. And--Gainesville Florida, home of the University of Florida, is this year's number one. It was number 56 in 2004, but was also ranked number one in 1996--coincidentally the last time before this year that the Florida Gators won the national title in College football. Maybe that is part of the criteria every ten years? (Message edited by rampartstreetnorth on May 09, 2007) | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4282 Registered: 08-2004 |
I love lists.... they're so meaningful... My favorite is still the list of the 6 largest Cathedrals in the world... there's 20 on that list! And as a kid, I remember going to visit Higgins Lake up in Roscommon County. There were signs around the lake touting it as the "6th most beautiful lake in the world". Somebody had to have come up with that list, or they wouldn't have printed up all those signs! | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 2759 Registered: 02-2005 |
I don't have a car so I wouldn't know, but it appears to me that A2 has enough parking garages. If downtown A2 grows like I want it to, though, it will need to investigate the use of underground parking. | ||
Rooms222 Member Username: Rooms222 Post Number: 11 Registered: 04-2005 |
Columbus Indiana has been known for its corporate paternalism where the owners of the large corporations in town created a fund where anyone building new construction (such as the church, mall, or newspaper plant) could apply to get extra funds for the cost of making it architecturally significant. Thus, Columbus has a beautiful downtown mall (like Portland), a Newspaper Plant that has lots of windows to the outside world where you can see the paper being printed (so did the family that owns the Dayton Daily News), and a whole bunch of striking and beautifully laid out stuff......It is quite different than most anything else..... | ||
Gingellgirl Member Username: Gingellgirl Post Number: 5 Registered: 04-2007 |
The data is obviously derived from simple number crunching. The areas noted are Metropolitan Statistical Areas, as determined by the Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/populati on/estimates/metro_general/Lis t4.txt). Sperling's lists their data sources at http://www.bestplaces.net/docs /DataSource.aspx | ||
Sstashmoo Member Username: Sstashmoo Post Number: 92 Registered: 02-2007 |
A2 is typical of all small college towns. Ultra-clean, very stable economy due to the college and the revenue it produces. Yuppyish trendy little shops in the absence of the college wouldn't last a month. Some of these towns are almost not even towns at all, they are campuses with a town. Comparing them to other small cities with revolving door manufacturing is hardly valid. I also wonder if this list was produced before Phizer bailed out. The list creators claimed to have used "dozens" of variables. I wonder what they were. Obviously weather and proximity to high crime areas were not considered. | ||
J_to_the_jeremy Member Username: J_to_the_jeremy Post Number: 12 Registered: 03-2007 |
I too suspect that Ann Arbor makes the top 5 by process of elimination. It probably ranks very well in all the "good" categories, and isn't big enough to have a crime problem, etc. It's still a great place to live, however, and I like living there. I have a hard time believing Benton Harbor is "better" than Detroit by so many spots. This is why these lists mean almost nothing. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 884 Registered: 06-2004 |
Detroit was rated in the 50s (I think 57) about ten years ago. They've sliced and diced the region up in a way that seesm to potentially depresse the scores. |
