Nevada cities not on magazine’s list of best places to live

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

Las Vegas may be a nice place to visit but according to Money magazine's criteria, it's not a great place to live.

Not one city in Nevada is included the magazine's list of the 100 "Best Places to Live 2005." Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson were all ranked only as "contenders," along with Gardnerville, Reno and Sparks.

The Top 10 cities are: Moorestown, N.J.; Bainbridge Island, Wash.; Naperville, Ill.; Vienna, Va.; Louisville, Colo.; Barrington, R.I.; Middleton, Wis.; Peachtree City, Ga.; Chatham, N.J., and Mill Valley, Calif.

The lack of a major teaching hospital or academic medical center knocked Las Vegas out of contention early when the list was being compiled, a spokesman for the joint project of CNN and Money magazine said Tuesday.

The first requirements for a city to be considered was that its population be over 14,000. Communities then had to be within 60 miles of a major airport and 30 miles of a major teaching hospital.

University Medical Center, which draws some of its staff from the University of Nevada School of Medicine, did not qualify, said Craig Matters, executive editor of Money magazine.

The presence of a teaching hospital isn't the only indicator of the quality of health care but it's a "pretty good one," Matters said.

In response to the report, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he had to agree with Money magazine that an academic medical center is a key component to a community's overall health and well-being.

"I have a lot of respect for (chief executive) Lacy Thomas and UMC but we are the largest city in North America that does not have an academic medical center," Goodman said. "That is totally unacceptable to me and apparently to Money magazine."

Goodman has made bringing an academic medical center to Las Vegas a personal priority. Discussions of a possible partnership with the University of Pittsburgh are in the early stages.

Nevada university system Chancellor Jim Rogers said Tuesday he would not support such a partnership unless the costs, estimated at $400 million, were split evenly. The academic medical center could potentially be part of a redevelopment plan for 61 vacant acres near the western edge of downtown Las Vegas.

The forthcoming performing arts center in the downtown area should improve Las Vegas' ranking on future lists, as would the addition of a major league sports team, Goodman suggested.

Las Vegas cracked Money magazine's top 10 list in 2002 when editors based their choices on a significantly smaller list of prerequisites. A short list of 30 cities was compiled using population growth and affordability of real estate; after that the magazine's reporters talked to real estate professionals, residents and others about the pros and cons of each community.

Matters said in compiling this year's list the staff realized it wasn't reasonable to compare small suburban towns -- like first-place finisher Moorestown, N.J., population 20,662 -- with large urban communities such as New York, Las Vegas or Los Angeles.

"They're such apples to oranges comparisons," Matters told the Sun. "At some point in the future we hope to do a best big cities list."

The largest city in the list's top 50 was 35th-place finisher Scottsdale, Ariz. which has a population of 289,400. Hollywood, Fla., with 416,600 residents, was the largest city in the top 100, ranking 70th.

Southern Nevada communities did manage to crack two lists: employment opportunities and high temperatures. Henderson and Las Vegas took the ninth and 10th spots respectively on the list of cities with fastest jobs growth. North Las Vegas was sixth on the list of "hottest" cities with an average July temperature of 107.5 degrees.

UNLV economist Keith Schwer said reports like those compiled by Money magazine are inherently subjective and may or may not accurately portray a city's best and worst features. However straight comparisons of home prices, incomes and other quality of life indicators can be helpful, Schwer said.

"It's like getting a copy of Consumer Reports when you're going to buy an automobile," said Schwer, who is executive director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV. "For some people this kind of information helps them make the decision either to come here or to leave."

Rankings or no, people ultimately "vote with their feet," said Schwer, noting that about 7,000 new residents arrive in the Las Vegas Valley each month and about 3,000 depart.

The Money magazine report does contain one glaring error: the average home price for Las Vegas is listed in the online report at $984,326, more than triple the $300,000 median price estimated by local real estate associations.

"Even I, being as rich as I am, would struggle to pay that," Goodman said.

Matters confirmed that the median home price figure was incorrect and would be fixed.

"Please offer my apologies to the mayor," Matters said.