By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – Money Magazine on the CNN website put a list together of the best places to live in the U.S. What's convenient, they allow the reader to decide what criteria are important. Financial, education, culture, etcetera. So how does Fort Worth and Dallas rank? I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Middays.
For "Life in the Big City." as they call it, with over 500,000 population and museums, restaurants and pro sports, Dallas ranked 7th and Fort Worth 15th. Not bad, if being part of a cosmopolitan community is what you want. But when it comes to libraries and museums both cities are well under the national average. I should say here that they have a total of 1224 cities in the rankings.
The national average for the median household income is $56,000. Dallas is 45 and Fort Worth 43. We ranked number one for state income tax rates. That's because we don't have a state income tax. Auto-insurance, we were below the national average by about $40. And if they had a ranking for homeowners insurance, I bet you we would have ranked last.
On personal crime risk, with 100 being the national average, Fort Worth was higher at 195 while Dallas ranked right off the bottom at 245. High-crime.
The most frightening stat for me was under environment, how many superfund sites we have. According to the EPA, superfund sites are "uncontrolled or abandoned places where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people." National average - 2.2. Fort Worth has 6 and Dallas 15. Air pollution - both cities were above the national average by about 30 points.
And in student-to-teacher ratio, almost 700 cities ranked better than Dallas and over 550 cities are better than Fort Worth.
We need to work on that one. For KERA Marketplace Middays, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.