NJ Monthly: Best Places To Live (Newark, Teterboro: crime, income, quality of life)

[Sergio M]

I'm with you Kalim. I also live in Cranford and I think it's a excellent town. Some of the statistics actually added up higher than Westfield. ( That's another thread )

[brookdaleresident]

All a person has to do is look for their own town, see what's above/below, and they'll know instantly how ridiculous the list is. Makes one wonder what criteria they used...sure isn't crime and schools.

[SheSellsNJ]

The report was useless. Secaucus is a sewer. Little Ferry is horrific. Ogdensburg is a 1 horse town and the horse looks like it should have been put out of its misery 6 months ago. What a waste of time and effort.

[CuCullin]

Originally Posted by brookdaleresident

All a person has to do is look for their own town, see what's above/below, and they'll know instantly how ridiculous the list is. Makes one wonder what criteria they used...sure isn't crime and schools.

Rate of growth was their large contributing factor, income was not included, not much of the area was factored in - its a run of number on new developments really. Kind of a silly way to consider a city/town "good".

[kalim2008]

Originally Posted by brookdaleresident

All a person has to do is look for their own town, see what's above/below, and they'll know instantly how ridiculous the list is. Makes one wonder what criteria they used...sure isn't crime and schools.

Then I suggest you go an read the methodology section below it.

Honestly, I'm amazed how people seem to think they can generalize their personal experience, or pick and choose a small subset of indicators superimposed on perhaps a subset of the total towns in NJ, then make wide generalizations.

I'd trust a properly executed and statistically valid study over anyone's personal opinions any time, which is why I like posting stuff like the Crime Rates link.

It's like the guy p*ssed off at Toyotas and who says GM cars are great because HIS GM car was pretty ok...WHO CARES?????

I would say though that the researchers should have given some indication about results that seem contrary to what people might EXPECT. IN other words, what exactly were they measuring over all.

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METHODOLOGY: In compiling New Jersey Monthly’s 2007 Top Towns list, researchers at Monmouth University’s Polling Institute considered eight categories best representing the quality of life in New Jersey’s 566 municipalities: property taxes, home values, population growth, land development, employment, crime rate, school performance, and proximity to services.

The research team selected a prototypical indicator corresponding, respectively, to each of these eight categories: median property tax (2007), median increase in home values (2000–2006), population growth rate (2000–2006), percentage of land preserved as open space (2007), unemployment rate (2006), total crime rate (2006), student proficiency on state-mandated standardized tests for students in grades 4, 8, and 11 (2006), and number of acute-care hospitals within ten miles.



To level the playing field, household income was not considered, and home values were measured by their rate of increase over five years rather than by current prices. To compare land development, towns with relatively slower growth and more open space were rated more favorably. Towns with lower unemployment and crime rates also scored higher, as did those closer to hospitals.


A statistical standardization technique was used to rank all 566 municipalities according to the eight indicators; an average of the eight numerical values for each municipality determined its final rank.

[AnesthesiaMD]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

Then I suggest you go an read the methodology section below it.

Honestly, I'm amazed how people seem to think they can generalize their personal experience, or pick and choose a small subset of indicators superimposed on perhaps a subset of the total towns in NJ, then make wide generalizations.

I'd trust a properly executed and statistically valid study over anyone's personal opinions any time, which is why I like posting stuff like the Crime Rates link.

It's like the guy p*ssed off at Toyotas and who says GM cars are great because HIS GM car was pretty ok...WHO CARES?????

I would say though that the researchers should have given some indication about results that seem contrary to what people might EXPECT. IN other words, what exactly were they measuring over all.

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I thought we went through this already, but I guess I will break it down even further for you. The title of the "study" is "Best Places to Live". Their methodology is incongruous with the title. One cannot conclude that a town is the "best place to live" based on the methodology. When you use the term "best" of anything, you are basing your assumptions on opinion. Therefore, in order to determine which is the "best", one has to figure out which towns MOST people consider the best, and second best, and third, and so on. Since NJ real estate is a free market, it is very easy to determine which towns MOST people consider the BEST. Just look at price. The more desirable a town is, the higher the price of land in that town.

If title your study "best schools"...look at scores.
If you title your study "best value"...look at where you get the most for your money.
But if your title is just a general "best place to live", look at price. And you absolutely CANT ignore household income! That skews everything. If a lot of wealthy people want to live in a particular town, that town probably has something special about it.

[kalim2008]

Originally Posted by AnesthesiaMD

I thought we went through this already, but I gues I will break it down even further for you.

I guess you didn't read what I posted: "I would say though that the researchers should have given some indication about results that seem contrary to what people might EXPECT. IN other words, what exactly were they measuring over all."

I've read some other threads in this forum, and I must say, I sorta get embarrased by the amount of bias and general "snobbiness" of people towards larger city areas and towns that they've never lived in, even in the face of ACTUAL RESIDENTS who protest that it's actually not that bad and actually is pretty ok. Again, almost everyone has an opinion, and most opinions are worth SQUAT unless one actually gets a large survey of people actually LIVING in the area PLUS add in statistics and data.

[kalim2008]

Threads like this pretty much tell the story:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...round-usc.html

The guy is being told by PEOPLE who actually lived there that the area around USC is ok, and yet he gets a different idea based on the threads here and just general "opinion".

I found some places near USC affordable, but I am hesistant to live there because of the crime, etc. I know a few people who have lived near USC for many years and they all say it is not that bad; however, I have a hard time believing that after reading some of these threads. I also know that there is gang activity around there which results in robberies, some homicides, etc.

For the record, I lived at the outskirts of the USC campus for a couple years and t'was cool.

[AnesthesiaMD]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

I guess you didn't read what I posted: [i]"I would say though that the researchers should have given some indication about results that seem contrary to what people might EXPECT. IN other words, what exactly were they measuring over all."
.

No, I read it, but your prior statements in the post outweighed this one. You said you would trust a study over peoples opinions. I was merely explaining why that should not be the case here.

[AnesthesiaMD]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

[/i]For the record, I lived at the outskirts of the USC campus for a couple years and t'was cool.

But again, it's opinion. Opinion based on individual life experience. To someone that grew up in a bad part of Newark, an area might not be bad, while to someone from the suburbs, it is. Since I have more in common with the people from the suburbs, I am going to trust their judgement over the other guy's. He may be thinking "well, there is only a handful of murders here per year." While to me, ONE murder is one too many.