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The criteria I guess was America's best small towns. Unfortunately their description of a small town is a bit ridiculous. Just from the one in the top 10 I am familiar with, being Lake St. Louis, "small town" is a bit of a stretch.
Lake St. Louis is a St. Louis suburb that really isn't much different than any other nice St. Louis suburb. Papillion, NE is pretty much just a suburb of Omaha also. Would be nice to see them pick ACTUAL small towns.
Liberty MO was number 29 on the list also. That isn't a small town by any stretch of the imagination. It is a cookie cutter KC suburb. Not as bad as Lenexa though which somehow made this list as a small town. Ridiculous.
The criteria I guess was America's best small towns. Unfortunately their description of a small town is a bit ridiculous. Just from the one in the top 10 I am familiar with, being Lake St. Louis, "small town" is a bit of a stretch.
Lake St. Louis is a St. Louis suburb that really isn't much different than any other nice St. Louis suburb. Papillion, NE is pretty much just a suburb of Omaha also. Would be nice to see them pick ACTUAL small towns.
Liberty MO was number 29 on the list also. That isn't a small town by any stretch of the imagination. It is a cookie cutter KC suburb. Not as bad as Lenexa though which somehow made this list as a small town. Ridiculous.
Check out the list.
Yeppers. I think that list is ridiculous because it includes all suburban and exurban places and no "true" small stand-alone community. If they wanted a better starting criteria they should look at micropolitan cities that are vibrant, and not affiliated with a nearby metropolitan area.
Peachtree City, GA...while it's truly a suburb of Atlanta, it's also a planned city that began in the 1950s and it easily a stand-alone town. Being suburbs doesn't automatically exclude these places from also being small towns.
Peachtree City, GA...while it's truly a suburb of Atlanta, it's also a planned city that began in the 1950s and it easily a stand-alone town. Being suburbs doesn't automatically exclude these places from also being small towns.
True, but the commuting patterns generally place these stand-alone towns well in the path of suburban sprawl and commercial development.
True, but the commuting patterns generally place these stand-alone towns well in the path of suburban sprawl and commercial development.
I'm not familiar with many of the other towns on the list, but Peachtree City is anything but sprawled...it is still within the boundaries that were set when the city was planned in the 50s, and is almost at it's population capacity of 40,000. It's a series of 5 villages, each with its own commercial/retail center.
The criteria: "CNNMoney's Best Places database of 1,800-plus U.S. cities includes towns with populations 8,500 to 50,000 with satisfactory education and crime scores, where income is below 200% of the state median, and that are no more than 95% white – as well as cities with populations 90,000 and up."
So they weren't just looking for small towns or rural places. Granted, having that cap of 50k population excludes any major cities. The final results are slanted toward smaller towns because major urban areas generally have worse crime rates, traffic problems and limited housing options, making them less desirable to live in for the average American family.
Peachtree City is indeed sprawled (I had to live there for 18 years). It is a place I would never live in again. Very socially conservative, horrible commute, very upper class mentality, and no real history to it (oldest homes are 50 years). It does not even have a real downtown (unless you call a higher end open air shopping center a downtown! Way to many homes on 2 and 3 acre lots as well. Yuck! Someone please show me an example of some form of actual density there.
Money magazine sure loves its sprawl. ALL of its "best places" are cookie cutter suburbs. No real small towns to speak of.
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