The folks at Money magazine have compiled a list of the nation's 100 best small cities in which to live. The top five are:
1. Eden Prairie, Minnesota
2. Columbia / Ellicott City, Maryland
3. Newton, Massachusetts
4. Bellevue, Washington
5. McKinney, Texas
You'll find the complete list here.
Perhaps the info will be useful to law prof candidates as recruiting season starts heating up.
I found it interesting, and depressing, that in the Yahoo version of the story they listed "worst things" about each of these places, and in all of them except Bellevue the problem was "traffic." That makes me think they have a pretty particular idea what makes a good place to live, and that it's a different idea than I have. (In Bellevue the problem was rain.) Also, that Idaho Falls comes in at 98th or something makes me think that there must be no more than 105 cities at most that fit their criteria.
The traffic issue is readily explained by the fact that nearly all the "small cities" on the Money Magazine list are really just suburbs of large cities.
I'd rather live in Idaho Falls (conveniently located between Yellowstone to the east and the Idaho national forests to the west) than most of the other places on the list. But that's just one of many examples of how I don't fit the "Money Magazine" demographic.
Eric- Yellowstone and the Idaho National Forests are both nice, even great, but I always find it a bit dubious as a complement about how great it is to live somewhere that it's easy to get somewhere else from there!
Haven't we learned, by now, that magazine prescriptions of what is "best" need to be laughed at? (See, e.g., U.S. News's law rankings)
Matt — That's a good point. I suppose I'd rate Idaho Falls as more of a "convenient" rather than "good" place to live (for the particular value of "convenient" = "proximate to wilderness and fly fishing").