2015’s Best & Worst Small Cities in America
November 8,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, WalletHub’s analysts compared 1,268 small cities in the U.S. to find the ones where residents don’t have to give up much. Our data set includes a total of 22 metrics, ranging from housing costs to school-system quality to the number of restaurants per capita.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a two-parent, two-child family would need to earn$49,114 a year “to secure an adequate but modest living standard” in Morristown, Tenn., compared with $106,493 in Washington. So even with a lighter wallet, a family or soloist can enjoy a comparable, or even better, quality of life for much less in a cozy place like Morristown.
Ridgewood NJ, was tied at 152 with Little Elm, TX, while Princeton NJ was ranked number 1. Ridgewood’s overall score was 50.44.
The affordability index took Ridgewood way down the list scoring a very un-affordable 1048! While despite being located in New Jersey we scored a 21 in Economic Health and a 74 in Education health thanks the stellar Ridgewood School system.
But another big weakness showed in the Quality of Life scoring a lowly 839,hummm we are just going to leave that one alone .
School system is riding on its reputation and far less stellar than it used to be.
Next year we will going up a class to LARGE CITY after the 3 Amigos ok the CBD master plan change.
No reason to “leave Quality of Life alone” as the original post says.
Their Quality of Life criteria are
Average Commute Time: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Percentage of Residents Who Walk to Work: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Mean Hours Worked per Week: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Number of Restaurants per 100,000 Residents: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Number of Bars per 100,000 Residents: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Number of Coffee Shops per 100,000 Residents: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Number of Museums per 100,000 Residents: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Number of Fitness Centers per 100,000 Residents: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Percentage of Millennial Newcomers: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Crime Rate: Full Weight (~2.5 Points)
Ridgewood is a family-oriented commuter suburb. Low Crime Rate, restaurants and some coffee shops we have. You want to walk to work, have a short commute, work short hours, museums, this is most likely not the town.
The building at the corner of Ridgewood and Broad (shown above) is beautiful. Thet architect who drew the Hudson garage was imitating this structure. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and saves lots of work.
The big difference between the two is that this building is 3 stories and the garage will be 4-5. If the garage were 3 stories I would support it.
The garage will be the biggest flop since Hubert Humphrey.
Princeton is #1 despite its notorious parking problems. How can that be? The garage was supposed to be the answer to everything. Don’t those clowns in Princeton understand that?