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I forgot to add in that post that a bunch of transplants (mostly Californians) forever following trends and unable to think for themselves answered the call and voilà ! you have the Austin of today.
I stand corrected....I have never been to Houston, and took second-hand all the stories I heard from ex-houstonites that "fled" Houston. Frankly, I was not very impressed with Austin itself, so I thought, how bad could Houston be if they are fleeing it for a city that is an overrated, overhyped college town, where professional students jockey for jobs at H-E-B?
Im Sorry.....I surely should have at least made it to Houston before I spoke.
Their reliable, so long as Omaha is on them, Omaha was ranked third on Kiplinger's, yay! What a reliable list!
By the way, these are the factors that made Houston number 1
Population: 5,542,048 Population Growth Since 2000: 14.9% Percentage of Workforce in Creative Class: 31.3% Cost-of-Living Index: 88.1 (100 being national average) Median Household Income: $50,250 Income Growth Since 2000: 13.1%
and what made Omaha number 3!
Population: 821,356 Population Growth Since 2000: 6.6% Percentage of Workforce in Creative Class: 30% Cost-of-Living Index: 89.4 (100 being national average) Median Household Income: $51,627 Income Growth Since 2000: 15.1%
Beware greatly of any list that has Omaha(SORRY WARREN) ranked #3 and Houston#1.......How about the Bay area, which wasn't even in the
top 10 in Kiplingers, along with Chicago, San Diego, Boston, and NYC? I mean, PLEASE!
I mostly like the top 10 lists (w/ Austin in them) because it validates that much more my decision to move there.
As I said, 50% or more southern californians move to Austin solely on top 10 lists, sight unseen, not realizing these are marketing gimmicks, paid for
by city PR......so sad, really.....than again, LA sold itself through PR for decades, so one good turn deserves another, i suppose....
If you understand the specific purpose of the list and who's developed it then yes they are beneficial. I would in no way make a decision based on one single list, but if I'm scoping an area a conglomeration of many lists that hit on things I care about could help develop the candidate list of areas I'm looking at...
A previous poster mentioned Omaha... its an example where 10 years ago it probably wouldn't even be on the radar for most top 10's... it now is regularly recognized with some top type list. That is an indication of what's happening from an economic development, quality of life, cost of living, etc perspective... So the lists at least give me a candidate list of where things are occuring which can be of great help when doing due diligience.
Its just a tool (one of many) no different than people coming to an online forum for advice/opinion on an area - would I base a move on a forum discussion - NO- but it does provide more informaiton in my due diligence.
Location: from houstoner to bostoner to new yorker to new jerseyite ;)
4,084 posts, read 12,681,773 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scongress1234
Beware greatly of any list that has Omaha(SORRY WARREN) ranked #3 and Houston#1.......How about the Bay area, which wasn't even in the
top 10 in Kiplingers, along with Chicago, San Diego, Boston, and NYC? I mean, PLEASE!
I'm assuming the point was not to pinpoint the usual (very expensive) suspects that EVERYONE AND HIS MOTHER already knows about, but those unknown, unheard of, underrated, or just recently coming into their own. Like Omaha, apparently.
By the way, Austin was #6 on the list.
And to answer the question, I've never based any move on a top 10 list. I'm an individual, not sheeple. No one knows my needs and desires better than me. They can be one tool out of many, but I don't grant much weight to them. I order COC relocation packets, visit city, county, and state websites, read their local newspapers to get a grasp on crime and local issues, peruse fora, study demographics, area schools and universities, the arts scene, and the local economy, consider proximity to other cities and/or airports, what people do for entertainment, etc. then visit and go with my gut. I've found doing those things much more useful than any top 10 list.
They're utterly unreliable, the subjective product of whatever reporter typed it out on a deadline. They're interesting, but not terribly factual.
You took the words right out of my mouth. You just had to.
Interestingly, though, the cities I'm most interested in moving to always score highly on these "top places to live list." i.e.: Houston, Austin, Atlanta, etc. Especially spot.com. I don't if it's pure coincidence or divine intervention through listing.
I'm assuming the point was not to pinpoint the usual (very expensive) suspects that EVERYONE AND HIS MOTHER already knows about, but those unknown, unheard of, underrated, or just recently coming into their own. Like Omaha, apparently.
By the way, Austin was #6 on the list.
And to answer the question, I've never based any move on a top 10 list. I'm an individual, not sheeple. No one knows my needs and desires better than me. They can be one tool out of many, but I don't grant much weight to them. I order COC relocation packets, visit city, county, and state websites, read their local newspapers to get a grasp on crime and local issues, peruse fora, study demographics, area schools and universities, the arts scene, and the local economy, consider proximity to other cities and/or airports, what people do for entertainment, etc. then visit and go with my gut. I've found doing those things much more useful than any top 10 list.
I have an interesting querry...what will happen when Austin, and the other usual suspects, stop appearing on top 10 lists? Will they just simply dematerialize?
How about the Bay area, which wasn't even in the
top 10 in Kiplingers, along with Chicago, San Diego, Boston, and NYC? I mean, PLEASE!
Some of the factors were also, the cost of living, crime rates, and growth of incomes, plus they include the whole metro, not just the city proper. San Francisco is really expensive and has Oakland, Chicago is expensive and has a stable economy which isnt growing extremely fast right now, Boston is also expensive and also doesnt have a booming economy, and NYC has its areas of crime, huge cost of living in Manhattan, and probably a receding economy. San Diego has traffic, which brings life quality down, terrible cost of living, a shrinking economy, and crime rates are going up.
Some of the factors were also, the cost of living, crime rates, and growth of incomes, plus they include the whole metro, not just the city proper. San Francisco is really expensive and has Oakland, Chicago is expensive and has a stable economy which isnt growing extremely fast right now, Boston is also expensive and also doesnt have a booming economy, and NYC has its areas of crime, huge cost of living in Manhattan, and probably a receding economy. San Diego has traffic, which brings life quality down, terrible cost of living, a shrinking economy, and crime rates are going up.
"Booming" economies must be qualified. Most of them are like Orlando, with the majority low-paying, non-union, service-orientated jobs. You are FAR more likely to find a higher paying job in those cities you just discounted. Now that RE is expensive in the low-paying boom cities as well, there is really no extra bang to your buck there, unless you are totally marginalized career-wise, and just happy to swing anything that pays the bills. Those boom cities tend to attract marginalized people that were displaced from other dying metros as well, which doesn't exactly build up the job-skill base in the boom cities. Again, when you see boom cities, think low-pay, non-union, service orientated jobs, with very few exceptions. Yes, some boom cities have some higher-end corporate and union jobs, but, for the most part, they hardly do, which is the whole reason companies are relocating to them as a way stop in the process of off-shoring.
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