NJ Monthly: Best Places To Live

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

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.

What's ridiculous about studies like that is that whether someone likes living in a particular place is extremely subjective, based on their personal preferences, tastes, etc. Not everyone even likes the same things about the categories you just listed.

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by lin67

Newark at 361, cranbury at 518.

anybody wants to move to newark from cranbury?

I don't know if I've ever been in Cranbury, so there's a decent possibilty if I had to choose between the two that I'd pick Newark, although surely not for the reasons that the study mentioned used.

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

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.

There IS no "properly executed and statistically valid study" of the best anything. "Best" is incorrigibly subjective.

The only utility it would have is if someone has analyzed their personal tastes to an extent required to know that the criteria used by the study just happens to match their personal tastes, AND they are also simplistic enough to just take the available statistics for those factors at face value. But more than likely what would happen in that situation is that if the person in question actually tried experiencing a number of towns from the list and seeing whether their feelings about what's the best really match, they're going to discover that either their personal tastes do not match the study's criteria after all, and/or they're really not simplistic when it comes to taking the available stats at face value.

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by AnesthesiaMD

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.

That doesn't work either. Argumentum ad populums (which is what that would be) are fallacious (at least if intended as anything other than a report of what most folks said/believe/etc.)

Now, there's a possibility that if 90 out of 100 people prefer x over y, and you're extremely mainstream in general, that you're going to prefer x over y too, but it's definitely not something one should count on when making a decision as important as where to live.

[AnesthesiaMD]

Originally Posted by DessertRat

That doesn't work either. Argumentum ad populums (which is what that would be) are fallacious (at least if intended as anything other than a report of what most folks said/believe/etc.)

Now, there's a possibility that if 90 out of 100 people prefer x over y, and you're extremely mainstream in general, that you're going to prefer x over y too, but it's definitely not something one should count on when making a decision as important as where to live.

Agreed, but when you are doing "studies" on what accounts to basically opinion, what else do you have to go by. It is really invalid no matter how you slice it. Its just is a little more palatable to the majority if the opinion was shared by the majority.

I actually did tell Hakim, that if Cranford is "the best" to him, then I respect that and wont argue the fact, but as long as he keeps insisting this study is anything BUT someone's opinion, I will keep telling him how wrong he is.

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by AnesthesiaMD

Agreed, but when you are doing "studies" on what accounts to basically opinion, what else do you have to go by. It is really invalid no matter how you slice it. Its just is a little more palatable to the majority if the opinion was shared by the majority.

Well, if I were the editor (and I actually have been a magazine editor in the past), I would have approached it this way instead:

Find maybe 8-10 people who have lived in an unusually large number of different places in New Jersey (the more locations the better), and then have each of them write about what towns they preferred and why, as well as telling us something about their backgrounds, jobs, everyday routines, etc., including any changes that might have occurred in their lives correlated to their various moves. I'd try to select people who have very different opinions.

The reason that I'd do it that way would be to stress that (1) these preferences ARE just opinions and can't be more than that, (2) different people are looking for different things, so to decide what location would be best for YOU, you'd have to assess your tastes and needs and then do the research, and more subtly, (3) that one can't really know what it's like to live somewhere unless one has lived there, and even then, it's just knowing what it is like for you.