Re: I love this town
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10/1/2006
Allison referred to a CNN listing that showed that Fayetteville was supposedly one of the top 100 places to live. CNN, Money Mag, and others (not including Sperlings) take a quick and careless look at what are the best places to live. There are many important factors that they do not take into account with their simplistic little quantitative approach. Sperlings takes a closer look, but you have to go beyond the "Compare" screens and read some of their other studies and check other sources as well. One of the many things that CNN didnt mention about Fayetteville is that men there over 40 are so close with their relatives and life long friends that they are very closed to new friendships with new men that move in from elsewhere. By friendship, I mean new guys to hang out with on your days off, etc. Another thing CNN's simplistic approach doesnt take into account, that Sperlings does, is traffic safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports on traffic fatalities BY STATE (a stumbling block for cursory surveys like CNN's). EVERY SOUTHERN STATE has a traffic fatality rate that is way way above the national average - EVERY SINGLE SOUTHERN STATE! Arkansas is no exception at 22.70 vs 14.00 for the nation as a whole. Since the Little Rock metro area is actually safer than most its size, that leads one to believe the Northwest Arkansas is an extremely dangerous place to drive, and that happens to be the case. I moved to a west coast state that is twice as safe as AR. All three west coast states are way way safer than AR. When you consider the fact that more people die in traffic "accidents" than from murder, it is kind of ridiculous to look at the weighting CNN and Money put on crime rates and compare that to the ZERO weighting they put on traffic fatalities. Obviously I put more than just a few hundred hours into researching this move, and if you are not really serious about learning about Fayetteville, Arkansas then this might not mean much to you.
Jerry | Financial District, NY