{"id":814,"date":"2010-01-02T19:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-03T00:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/living-in-child-friendly-places"},"modified":"2010-01-02T19:47:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-03T00:47:00","slug":"living-in-child-friendly-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/housing-news\/living-in-child-friendly-places\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in Child-Friendly Places"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may raise good kids but it certainly has its cost.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

BusinessWeek<\/a> once again released its Best Places to Raise Kids list for the year with few changes from last year’s results. The site explains its method, “This year we are going state by state\u2026 we selected towns with at least 50,000 residents and a median family income between $40,000 and $100,000. We then narrowed the list of towns using the following weighted criteria: school performance; number of schools; household expenditures; crime rates; air quality; job growth; family income; museums, parks, theaters, and other amenities; and diversity. We weighted school performance and safety most heavily, but also gave strong weight to amenities and affordability.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind with this list, the organizing principle was affordability. While the median household income varies by state, we purposely weighted the results to prevent pricing out most readers. That’s why, for example, Greenwich, Conn., with its good private schools, low crime, and abundance of cultural amenities, was left out. It simply costs too much to live there.”<\/p>\n

Therefore, it’s a really safe category for the list. The team perhaps decided it would be best to narrow the selection to a middle class status to avoid expensive areas. But we thought of ranking the cities that won in each state and find out how much it would cost to reside and help nurture your children.<\/p>\n

It turns out that based on the cost of living index, New Rochelle, NY is the most expensive child-friendly city based on BusinessWeek’s selection. This is followed by Honolulu, HI, Los Angeles, CA, Anchorage, AK and Edison, NJ. It should be noted that Edison has been consistent at the top of the state list for two years now. It may be a good city to raise kids but this should tell us that the costs are definitely above the national average of 100.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the most affordable area is Malden, MA followed by Lee’s Summit, MO and Rock Hill, SC. Here’s the complete child-places’ cost of living index list that we compiled by using the places listed by BusinessWeek and Cost of Living figures that we researched.<\/p>\n

Place Cost of Living
\nNew Rochelle, New York\t169.8
\nHonolulu, Hawaii\t165.0
\nLos Angeles, California\t142.0
\nAnchorage, Alaska\t125.0
\nEdison, New Jersey\t124.3
\nPembroke Pines, Florida\t120.4
\nBurlington, Vermont\t120.0
\nGaithersburg, Maryland\t119.1
\nWest Haven, Connecticut\t118.0
\nNashua, New Hamsphire\t116.0
\nMount Prospect, Illinois\t114.5
\nBellevue, Washington\t114.0
\nPortland, Maine\t114.0
\nVirginia Beach, Virginia\t110.0
\nWilmington, Delaware\t103.0
\nPawtucket, Rhode Island\t101.2
\nAnn Arbor, Michigan\t100.0
\nBillings, Montana\t100.0
\nBiloxi, Mississippi\t100.0
\nBismarck, North Dakota\t100.0
\nBend, Oregon\t100.0
\nCasper, Wyoming\t100.0
\nColumbus, Ohio\t100.0
\nOrem, Utah\t100.0
\nParadise, Nevada\t100.0
\nPhoenix, Arizona\t100.0
\nSioux Falls, South Dakota\t100.0
\nWarner Robins, Georgia\t100.0
\nEagan, Minnesota\t98.0
\nLexington-Fayette, Kentucky\t95.0
\nJacksonville, North Carolina\t94.0
\nBoise City, Idaho\t93.0
\nBossier City, Louisiana\t93.0
\nEau Claire, Wisconsin\t93.0
\nFort Wayne, Indiana\t93.0
\nCharleston, West Virginia\t92.0
\nPittsburgh, Pennsylvania\t92.0
\nRio Rancho, New Mexico\t91.7
\nEuless, Texas\t91.5
\nFort Collins, Colorado\t91.0
\nHuntsville, Alabama
\n91.0
\nWest De Moines, Iowa\t90.0
\nOverland Park, Kansas\t89.3
\nFayettville, Arkansas\t89.0
\nOmaha, Nebraska\t89.0
\nLawton, Oklahoma\t86.0
\nMurfreesboro, Tennessee\t85.4
\nRock Hill, South Carolina\t83.8
\nLee’s Summit, Missouri\t80.0
\nMalden, Massachusetts\t74.7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may raise good kids but it certainly has its cost. BusinessWeek once again released its Best Places to Raise Kids list for the year with few changes from last year’s results. The site explains its method, “This year we are going state by state\u2026 we selected towns with at least 50,000 residents and a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}