MyLife.com rated two Arizona cities as the best places to raise a family in the nation. Scottsdale made #1 and Chandler made the #4 spot.
MyLife.com started with a list of the 100 most populous cities in the U.S. and ranked them from one to 100 in each of the following categories:
•Crime Rate – Your child’s safety is something that is always on your mind. It doesn’t matter if he or she is five or 50, you hope they are staying safe. So we examined crime rate as an important criteria. Data found on neighborhoodscout.com.
•Public School Ranking – Education is important as well. You’d like your child to be able to survive a college classroom, and that’s where being prepared comes in. Numbers from schooldigger.com, which explains how they rank the schools here.
•Public Parks Per Capita – Children getting exercise is of big significance as well. It keeps them healthy, and it helps the parents stay happy. Public parks are an excellent, and free, way to do that. Data found through Yelp.
•Average Family Salary – Being able to afford a couple of luxuries, like a television or a new baseball bat and glove, can really help the “fun” factor that goes along with growing up. This is the average salary based on a family household. Numbers from the Census website.
•Cost of Living – In order to balance out annual salary, we looked the cost of living in each city as well. Data attained through Area Vibes website.
After establishing a ranking for each of those categories, MyLife.com editors assigned a score to each city for those categories as well. Once those were added up, they divided the sum into an average; the lower that average was the better.