Product Description

Best Places to Raise Your Family: Experts Choose 100 Top Communities That You Can Afford provides timely facts and expert in-depth analysis on 100 U.S. neighborhoods in an accessible and friendly format. Whether you're mulling over the idea of relocating your family, trying to decide where to live once you have a family, or just curious about how your hometown stacks up, you’ll be intrigued by Best Places to Raise Your Family. In addition to providing population statistics, each city is ranked on a number of essential factors such as: education, standard of living, health and safety, and lifestyle. Easy-to-use tables help you put this wealth of information to work to find the place that best suits your family's special needs and interests.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #499592 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

From the Back Cover
The Top 100 Places in the U.S. Ranked & Rated for Families

Looking to relocate your family now or in the future? Just want to see how your hometown stacks up against the competition? Best Places to Raise Your Family gives you information and insights on the best affordable neighborhoods in the United States.

This is the only book of its kind, giving you in-depth data and expert assessments for each place. Rankings based on five key categories—population, standard of living, education, health and safety, and lifestyle—help you make the right choice for your family.

• 100 best U.S. neighborhoods for families, organized alphabetically for easy reference
• The latest facts and detailed analyses—with data provided by Bert Sperling, creator of Money magazine's original "Best Places to Live" list
• Quick-access tables and top-ten lists by category to help you pinpoint the information you need
• Additional information on each location available at Bert Sperling's popular website: BestPlaces.net
• Practical approach—with evaluations based on value and affordability, as well as excellence

About the Author
Peter Sander is a professional author, researcher, and consultant in the fields of business and personal finance. He has written 13 books including Cities Ranked & Rated, Value Investing For Dummies, the 250 Personal Finance Questions Everyone Should Ask, The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Living on a Budget, and Niche and Grow Rick. His educational background includes an MBA in Logistics Management from Indiana University, a BA in Urban Affairs educational background includes an MBA in Logistics Management from Indiana University, a BA in Urban Affairs and Administration from Miami University of Ohio, and professional training and examination as a Certified high tech firm. Among numerous national and local television and radio appearances, Sander's credits include NBC Today, CNBC, CNNfn, Fox News, and Business Talk Radio. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, and now living with his wife and family in Granite Bay, CA, he has traveled in all 50 U.S. states.

For twenty years, Bert Sperling has been helping people find their own Best Place to live, work, play, and retire. His work continues to appear in the national media nearly every month. His 2004 book, Cities Ranked and Rated (also co-authored with Peters Sander) profiles metro areas in the United States and Canada, and was introduced on the Today show.
Sperling's studies and comparisons of cities cover a broad range, including such topics as best places to Live, Best Places for Seniors, Best Places to Retire, Most Stressful Cities, Best Cities for Dating, Most Fiscally Fit Cities, America's Healthiest Cities, Most Drivable Cities, Best and Worst Cities for Fleas, Most Romantic Cities, Most Photogenic Cities, Best Places to Buy a Second Home, Best Cities for Teens, Most Unwired Cities (Wi-Fi), Best Cities for Sleep, and Most Fun Cities. His firm's website, www.bestplaces.net, provides insight and guidance to millions of visitors each month, and its content is found on such websites as MSN, eBay, Yahoo!, and the Wall Street Journal.
Bert was born in Brooklyn, New York and has lived in such diverse places as Kodiak, Alaska; Carmel Valley, California; Key West, Florida; Oslo, Norway; and Long Island, New York. He currently makes his home in Portland California; Key West, Florida; Oslo, Norway; and Long Island, New York. He currently makes his home in Portland and Depoe Bay, Oregon, with his wife Gretchen and their faithful English Bull Terriers, Ruthie and Molly.

Customer Reviews

It's OK.
There is a lot of information here. We especially liked the 100 `family' places around the country, but isn't that what any suburb is anyway? Still, the selections are interesting.

There are just a few maps in the book and they are quite cheesy. Plus, a lot of the figures they use are recycled from the Census of six years ago. Any good web surfer can dig that stuff up.

I don't know about you, but I could have used less information on Starbucks outlets and `picture postcard' settings and a lot more on the schools. Isn't that why families move?

This book is an OK start. But there must be a better book out there on how a family in North Carolina can find a good school system in suburban Phoenix.

Not worth it.
Somehow I live in one of these places and I know several others very well. I trying to move from one of the best places to raise my family. This book just didn't have the information needed to make a sound decision.

Diversity, mangled
This is a dishonest book.

The authors claim to have invented a `diversity measure' for each place, giving the percent odds the next person you meet on the street will be of a different ethnic origin than your own. They peg the U.S. average at 54 percent.

They say, ". . . diversity makes a place a better place to live," and that it "brings value in differing points of view, differing interests, and different cultures to learn from."

Now for this book's dirty little secret: By their own figures, almost all of the 100 places they feature are less diverse than America.

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to piously celebrate diversity, stop steering readers away from diverse Dallas or Charlotte or Chattanooga to lily-white Flower Mound, Matthews, or Hixson.