What Is Important To You?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/what-do-americans-prioritize-when-picking-aplace-to-live/387328/?utm_source=btn-email-whts

Urban Meadow
zfein.com

Hello Everyone:

Do you ever wonder why you chose the city, town, or community you call home?  Was it the schools, the location to where you work or go to school, cultural vibrancy, or it is the trendiest place to live?  There are a lot of factors that go into deciding where a person wants to live.  Deciding where to live is not just a matter of a pin drop on a map, it means having to set up a life in the chosen city.  Gillian B. White's article for The Atlantic, "What Do American Prioritize When Picking a Place to Live" explores the reasons why people choose a city or community to live.  The same reasons apply almost anywhere you go in the world.  Everyone has their own reason for choosing a place to live and this article is look at what Americans prioritize in choosing a place to live.

Tree-lined neighborhood in Portland, Oregon
sfgate.com

Gillian B. White reports, "...the most recent Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll suggests that there a few things Americans agree on when it comes to picking a place to build a life."  An overwhelming 90 percent of respondents said that equal opportunities for upward mobility, through education and employment opportunities was one of the most important factors in deciding where to live.  Further, more than 75 percent of the respondents thought that ethnic and racial diversity was a positive feature for a community.  This 75 percent, including Blogger, believe that a diverse community was a positive feature.  While about half of the respondents preferred living among those who shared similar political and religious beliefs.

The Allstate/National Journal poll also asked people "what elements made a city or town a good place to live, the poll also asked Americans how they felt communities were performing on these measures."  Seventy-four percent of the respondents reported that they believed their communities were place of equal opportunity for upward mobility.  One person, Melanie Thompson, agrees with this comment.  Ms. Thompson has lived in the Jackson, Michigan area all her life and says, "that the area provides resources and support for people of different income levels to enhance their educational attainment and careers."  According to Ms. Thompson, "I'm currently going to the community college, I've been out of school for years and even when I was in school, there were lower-income kids who automatically got two free years [at the college]."  Ms. Thompson works at a national fast food restaurant and though she would prefer another job, she credits her town for being family friendly and providing employment opportunities.

Madison Street
Chicago, Illinois
photograph by J.R,Schmidt
wbez.org

However, not every place won accolades from the residents.  Devin Townsend of Cleveland, Ohio unequivocally said his city was not the place to get ahead.  Mr. Townsend said, "There aren't many opportunities.  It's actually getting worse: the job rate, and the crime rate to due to the job rate."  He thinks that more jobs are necessary but that is not reality of the current situation.  While there are opportunities, they are not available to everyone.  Access to economic opportunities within a given community factored into the positive reviews of  respondents.  The responses were divided along racial lines: Caucasian respondents were more likely to give their community a favorable rating then African-American or Latino respondents.  The responses were also based on economic standing: those in a higher income bracket gave their communities more positives reviews for available economic opportunities then those on the lower economic strata.

Cafe Berlin
Washington D.C,
restaurant.com

Gillian B. White writes, "While there was a great deal of consensus about the importance of creating opportunities for everyone to get ahead, those who identified as minorities or Democrats were more likely to rate racial and ethnic diversity as important elements of their communities who were white, or belonged to other political parties."  Blogger wonders if someone who identifies as white Democrat would also rank racial and ethnic diversity high on the list of communal priorities or if someone who is an African-American Republican would place political and philosophical homogeneity higher on the community priority list.

Quoting Melanie Thompson, "...her once-homogenous community in Jackson, Michigan, has gotten more diverse since she was a child,"  Ms. Thompson says, "When I was in school, it was mostly a white area but it's changed.  It's quite diverse."  While Ms. Thompson supports a more racial mixed town, it is not a priority for her, "It's not huge deal, but it's better.  With every different ethnicity it's more knowledge, the more you know the better off you are," say Ms. Thompson.  Almost 75 percent of Americans believed that their communities were places of ethnic and racial diversity.  Caucasian and Latino agreed with the statement "that their communities were diverse at lower levels than black Americans, who more likely to report that they lived around people of different races and ethnicities."

What do you prioritize when deciding where to live?