Well that took me longer than I expected. I've been working on my spreadsheet analysis of the 11 cities on my list. And, OK, I haven't been working non-stop. I actually finished it about 2 weeks ago, then I sat on it to see if my feelings about any of the categories or their ratings changed. This morning, I tweaked a couple things, and finally feel like the spreadsheet is designed the way I want it to be. (Thanks to my statistician friend for teaching me how to make a spreadsheet and how to make this one better!)
Forgive me if I'm repeating my last post. It's been a month since I wrote it /sighs at self/ so I probably already said this. But anyway...
I started the analysis by compiling a list of every category I researched, then ranking each category as "most important" "moderately important" and "less important." Things like friends went in the first category, food and commute times went in the second, and sports and child/teacher ratios in the third. Next, without really remembering the relative importance of each category, I made a separate (and very long) list of my research in each of those categories, then within each category, rated each city from "very good" (5) to "very bad" (1). Finally, I assigned a weight to each category. For example, while friends and fresh water are both in my "most important" category, I think friends are more important to my happiness and quality of life, so I have friends more weight than water.
Here are my results, from highest score to lowest. Some commentary will follow:
Forgive me if I'm repeating my last post. It's been a month since I wrote it /sighs at self/ so I probably already said this. But anyway...
I started the analysis by compiling a list of every category I researched, then ranking each category as "most important" "moderately important" and "less important." Things like friends went in the first category, food and commute times went in the second, and sports and child/teacher ratios in the third. Next, without really remembering the relative importance of each category, I made a separate (and very long) list of my research in each of those categories, then within each category, rated each city from "very good" (5) to "very bad" (1). Finally, I assigned a weight to each category. For example, while friends and fresh water are both in my "most important" category, I think friends are more important to my happiness and quality of life, so I have friends more weight than water.
Here are my results, from highest score to lowest. Some commentary will follow:
- Cleveland 75.7
- Portland 72.4
- Washington, DC 72.3
- Chicago 68.2
- Columbus 67.8
- Denver 67.5
- Des Moines 67.4
- Asheville 65.6
- Raleigh 62.1
- Philadelphia 58.8
- Los Angeles 53.6
The three most unexpected results were how high Cleveland and Columbus scored, and how low Raleigh scored.
While ranking the cities, I tried very hard to combat any pro-Cleveland bias, fearing that because I'm currently in Cleveland and enjoying life, I might be giving it too much credit. I'll never know if I let some unfair bias seep into my assessment of Cleveland, but I also knew as I was doing the exercise that it didn't matter, because I like Cleveland and I think I'd be happy settling down here, regardless of its results.
Columbus, while only scoring a 5, which is solidly in the middle, did far better than I expected. While ranking each city, Columbus never stood out for any particularly great qualities. But Columbus also never stood out for any bad qualities either -- it's just a gently pleasant city, and one I will at least consider in my job search.
Raleigh surprised me with how low in the rankings it finished. I have a lot of good feelings for the place, but I'll have to think hard about whether those good feelings (which might be error-riddled nostalgia?!?) outweigh the below-average showing in my assessment. I think if I seriously consider a return to North Carolina, it should be to Asheville instead, which I also enjoyed and which scored higher.
Portland and Washington mostly lived up to my expectations. As I ranked the cities and Portland scored 5 after 5 in so many "quality of life" categories, I knew it would wind up near the top. And Washington has a combination of objective factors I'd really like in a city and a few subjective factors, like plenty of loved ones and an easy job market. I thought Chicago would end up near the top; I'm only surprised that its actual score wasn't closer to DC and Portland.
LA and Philly's rankings were also predictable based on how they rated as I went through each category. LA especially, had 1 after 1 in so many categories. Where LA shines, it really shines, but it has too many problems and too many things I wouldn't like about living there. Philly's low score was a combination of overall shabbiness, and getting the lowest score in my most heavily-weighted category (friends and loved ones).
Denver and Des Moines in the middle of the pack seems about right. I really liked both cities for very different reasons, but both have some weaknesses when compared to some of the other cities so neither was likely to wind up at the top of the list. I'm amused that their scores were almost identical (67.5 and 67.4) because they sure didn't score the same in most of the categories!
Since that was a lot to write and to read, I'll save more thoughts for a post in a few days.
