Flower Mound?

I don’t know, but the reaction to the list is more inexplicable than the list itself. What is *wrong* with Gaithersburg? Apparently, it’s a city of 50000 with 9 parks. It’s close to Washington D.C., for those who want to get to its museums and theaters. Where should a family with children want to live? (Other than Paris….?)

How could living armpit to armpit with a gazillion other people be in any way desirable?

NYC & the morbid rest? – no thanks

… and continuing, Hood River is an hour outside of Portland, Park City 40 min outside of SLC, Santa Fe is an hour from Albuquerque, Missoula is nowhere near anything, and Bellingham is an hour from Vancouver and 90 minutes from Seattle. Clearly the “daily communte” dimension becomes less important once the brats are off to college.

As an added plus, if you’re old and live in Hood River you’ll have an endless supply of dern kids and their fancy wind surfing/moutain biking/snow boarding/ etc. to complain about. (It’s an awfully pretty place, though.)

Growing up outside New Haven, Connecticut wasn’t that bad… I am surprised to see leafy New England do so poorly.

Feh. Dumb lists. I’m in G-burg a lot. There is nothing to distinguish it from ten other nearby places in Montgo County.

in relation to Drezner’s exhibit A, I can confirm that I think big box retail is a fucked-up business model whether it’s in the suburbs or not. And the swinging district of Camden Town is just fine for my young family (albeit that one does have to put up with the occasional jibe that I live there because it was terribly fashionable in the early 90s and so was I).

“Is it because I is liberal”?

Do people really not find the notional life transitions laid out in the chart—from New York or L.A. to Boulder or Austin to … Flower Mound or Gaithersburg—even slightly funny? It’s like, as if the endless diapers and slug-like minivans aren’t enough, here’s where you have to live.

Well, first of all, I don’t think there’s any evidence that Americans buy into these ‘notional life transitions’. Sperling wants to sell lists, and advertising, and consulting, and whatever, and one of the tricks is to subdivide into multiple categories so there can be a whole bunch of places that are the ‘best’ places (or at least in the top 10). I’m not sure why there’s no ‘best place’ list for “left-of-center intellectuals who want to maintain their hipness while raising kids”, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sperling add that too. Best places for Democrats, best places for Republicans, best places for Libertarians, best places for Greens. (The best place for Libertarians, BTW, is anywhere just outside a college town. You get to enjoy the tolerant social mores without getting stuck with the taxes).

The other trick is to change the criteria from year to year, so cities move up and down the lists even though the underlying characteristics are very stable. But who wants to pay to see a new list that’s almost the same as the old list? U.S. News uses the same tricks with its college rankings.

And what is it with the mini-vans? I can say from personal experience that they’re excellent for hauling mountain bikes and kayaks and snowboards (and, yes, the kids and dog besides). And much less slug-like in their driving than the ubiquitous SUVs. The styling won’t get any women hot and bothered, but since I’m already married any hot-and-bothered women would only be a nuisance.

In fact, minivans (in the U.S. anyway) really aren’t as slug-like as they should be. By which I mean that instead of improving fuel-economy, manufacturers have held economy constant and continually increased performance. Having a 250HP minivan that’ll do 0-60 in 7 seconds and 125mph at the top end is…well…kind of stupid, but that’s what everybody is selling. Unfortunately an efficient diesel with a manual transmission is not an option here. At least not yet.

What makes you think I’ve never heard of these places?

It’s called bullshit detector.

I have to agree with the poster upthread who wondered why “empty nester” seems to equate to “doesn’t have to work.” Many, if not most, empty nesters are working harder than ever before, either to keep the kiddoes in grad school or simply because they’re not spending time ferrying little Jayden and Cayden hither and yon.

And let’s face it, retirement is becoming a thing of the past – most over-65’ers are still going to be working. Those wonderful cities for empty nesters are, in fact, suitable for a tiny minority of the independently wealthy. Santa Fe shore is purty, though. And fun to shop at.

I moved with my family, to Louisville CO two weeks ago. It really isn’t a suburb, it is an old mining town situated between two cities.

The reasons to move there are the opposite ones usually given for moving to suburbs. Louisville is cheaper than living in Boulder or Denver. I can walk to restaurants, coffee shops, the grocery store, and the library from my house.

My view is I have the all the advantages of true small-town living combined with easy access to urban pleasantries.

OK, now that I’ve started to sound like a realtor, I’ll stop.

As a DC dweller with a wife and kid I have to say — Gaithersburg, no thanks — hellish traffic, soulless environment. I’m fortunate enough to be able to handle the ridiculous costs here and the private schools, which probably drive many people out of the city for legitimate reasons. But at least they might have said Bethesda (although also wickedly expensive).

What I’m baffled by is the folks here who opt for the Exurban existence for the sake of having a bigger house and yard. Christ, what a soul crushing experience it has to be to drive an hour and a half or two each way to work every day. When I venture forth in the morning out of the city to clients I am just astonished at what these folks tolerate every day for reasons I can’t fathom.

Drezner never said such a thing, nor did any of the commenters here. Those are Healy’s words.

Drezner said, “There’s something about the suburbs that appears to periodically freak out the Crooked Timberites” and “I suspect Kieran was mostly being flip, but I do think there’s a part of him that shudders with dread about the exemplary suburban locale”

“Reflexive sneer” is stronger than “part of him shudders with dread”. I’d say that Drezner’s characterization is more appropriate for the original post, though “reflexive sneer” seems about right to characterize “Armpit, CO or Refuse Mound, TX”, doesn’t it?

Dan Drezner thinks I display “shock” and “distress” at these family-friendly places and that part of me “shudders with dread about the exemplary suburban locale.”

I hear this Drezner guy teaches at Missoula, right?

I lived in a suburb of Portland, because I was taken in by the “good school” argument. I never found my neighborhood and the people in it anything but dull and this of course was the way things were for my kids, too. We should have lived in Portland proper, which is just fine! So I’m with David. Live somewhere interesting and diverse.
After the kids finished college, I moved to Hawaii! I will never ever again live in a boring place for any reason.