Cedar Rapids-#1 Place to Raise Kids in America

[funksoulbro]

Everyone knows the only real statistic for rating a city's livability is how neat the skyline looks.

That's why Des Moines is such a great place to live. Maybe if Cedar Rapids can get a 400-foot building downtown, kids would be happier to live there. Ya know...because a 400-foot building in this day and age is really something of a technological marvel.

[capitalcityguy]

[Vitae]

Originally Posted by atler8

As with many studies that look at and rate/rank various places & topics, you may have valid concerns about some of the metrics that are measured here & how they are applied to compute a score for Cedar Rapids and the other cities in the study. However, your "If you don't care..." remarks regarding Cedar Rapids in your later post of this a.m. do not seem to be on the mark at all with the purpose of the study or it's conclusions. In other words, I don't see anything in the data or it's conclusions that particularly back that train of thought especially given the details listed in the 7 viewable categories.

What I see in the data that makes me think the authors of this study do not believe crime rate matters is that as far as I can tell they did not include crime rate as a variable. If you make a study called "the best place to raise kids in America" you are saying that you believe the variables you include in your study are relevant to raising kids and the variables omitted are irrelevant. Either that or your study has a stupid name.

Now it's possible that they did include crime rate since they are incredibly obtuse about their 13 variables for no apparent reason. As I said before, their chart only lists 6. A few other variables are mentioned in the narrative but not included in the chart which is very confusing. At no point do they say "here is a list of the 13 variables we used" which seems like a pretty significant omission since that is the entire basis of everything they said in the entire article. I have to think they didn't as if they did I don't think CR could possibly be #1 and I don't think Omaha would have even made the list.

[Vitae]

I like CR. It is a good place to raise kids and live in general. It is not the best in America and this "study" is stupid and as methodologically sound as a high school paper.

[funksoulbro]

Originally Posted by Vitae

I like CR. It is a good place to raise kids and live in general.

The same can be said of thousands of cities around America, and many of them are places nobody has ever heard of before. Or, will ever hear of in the future. Baghdad is a great place to raise kids and live in general, relative to Mercury where the daily temperature can range from -280 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. I'll never quite understand why lists are necessary to quantify the most banal minutiae that lies almost exclusively in the eye of the beholder.

But, people who are insecure with their own choices need an arbitrary list to publicly validate their homerism. That's the tiny niche these lists are filling.

[Monkey1970]

I just have one thing to say though, is how do you determine what is a good place to live in or not to live in. Not saying all of them are right, why are certain cities on them so much?

[Vitae]

Originally Posted by Monkey1970

I just have one thing to say though, is how do you determine what is a good place to live in or not to live in. Not saying all of them are right, why are certain cities on them so much?

A lot of them are the same "studies" done every year by the same people using the same variables, and since those variables don't change drastically, the rankings don't change much either.

[atler8]

Originally Posted by funksoulbro

Everyone knows the only real statistic for rating a city's livability is how neat the skyline looks.

That's why Des Moines is such a great place to live. Maybe if Cedar Rapids can get a 400-foot building downtown, kids would be happier to live there. Ya know...because a 400-foot building in this day and age is really something of a technological marvel.

The Cedar Rapids skyline has not been mentioned here until now but I don't at all get the repeated fixation on basically putting down the fact that some people enjoy skylines & express their interest or pleasure in seeing them. By contrast, some people enjoy mountain scenery & express their pleasure in such scenery. I happen to be someone who has interest in both types of scenery & have every right to express my views on them & also express my pleasure in what I see.
The poking at Iowa skylines erupted a few years ago here on the Iowa forum when I mentioned how favorably the skyline of Des Moines strikes me even though it's small as compared to where I live & small as compared to the many cities I have visited. Size really has nothing to do with the aesthetics of something that gives you visual pleasure whether it be a skyline or mountain scenery.
Thus it must have been a horrible shock for some folks to have seen the nice thumbs up on the Des Moines skyline that a visitor from Manhattan gave it here a year ago after he visited Des Moines & dropped in to comment on the city in a thread he created.
I enjoy various aspects of design, whether it be in business or residential design and as a by-product of that, the way in which various styles & sizes of buildings contrast or work together or don't work together. It's just one of my many varied interests & one that I've had since I was a kid.
As for Cedar Rapids, even though it's skyline is very small, I have often enjoyed the skyline views I've had of it's downtown area which is made attractive by it's Cedar River setting & the Civic Center complex set on May Island in the middle of the river. FYI: Paris is the only other city in the world to also have an island setting for it's civic complex.