Chins Up, Orlando

Yesterday morning as I read through the Orlando Sentinel, I honed in on a story about Children’s Health magazine. I was surprised to see that the magazine has ranked Orlando 98th among its 100 best and worst cities to raise a family. Here’s why:

We considered more than 30 factors that parents deem vitally important, including crime and safety, education, economics, housing, cultural attractions, and health. When we crunched the numbers, these were the cities that best complemented family life.

As an Orlando native, I could present a counter-argument with a list a reasons why my husband and I chose to start a family here … such as the fact that my toddler knows he lives down the street from Mickey Mouse … and Shamu … and the beach. But I won’t go there. Central Floridians know why it’s a great place to live and have children. What struck me was this: according the Sentinel:

Editors at the magazine dinged the City Beautiful for its relatively low per-pupil spending, high crime rates, low homeownership rate, high unemployment and the number of sex offenders and missing children per capita.

It’s surprising to me that the editors of Children’s Health believe that owning a home is either a good – or bad – thing. That way of thinking is very antiquated, and (arguably) one of the reasons why we’re in a housing crisis to begin with … which leads me to believe that perhaps the other criteria that “complement family life” may be up for dispute as well.

Here’s a photo of a shuttle launch I took from my house in March. How many people in #1-ranked Burlington, Vermont can post that?

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