CNN.com/Money Magazine just released their 2005 Best Places to Live list. Omaha was a contender, along with Lincoln and Papillion (Papio was a finalist). They took the national averages of several different categories and compared the city they were analyzing to the average of their "Best Places" list. Here are a few:

Omaha Best Places Avg.

Average Income $49,737 $68,160

Average Home Price $125,177 $316,665 (!)

Student:Teacher 15.30 15.37

Personal Crime Risk 130 69 (This was suprising, as the higher the #, the worse crime is)

Restaurants 1,892 3,431

Bars (w/in 15 miles) 361 241

Museums 1 10

This is a subject that Pete and I have discussed many times--we always felt like you could take any exit, whether it be off I-80 or I-680, and arrive at a bar in less than 5 minutes. We thought this was entirely reasonable and correct--now we have the data to back it up. There is one bar for every 1,340 people.

Lincoln's bar numbers were lower than I figured, but then again, when you have one bar for every 1,711 people, you're doing pretty good to scale. So I compared that to other Big XII schools:

Lincoln: 1711:1
Norman, OK: 2,278:1
Austin, TX: 3,963:1
Lubbock, TX: 5,568:1
Waco, TX: 2,365:1
Iowa City, IA: 1,224:1
Boulder, CO: 1,497:1 (and oh my God, the average home costs $366,051 there--who said that there were a bunch of rich, spoiled hippies that go to school there?? Where would someone get that idea?)
Columbia, MO: 3,004:1

Not suprisingly, the only places that beats out Lincoln are Iowa City and Boulder--if I'm living in Iowa, I want a bar everywhere I look, too. As far as Boulder goes, that must include Hukkah bars, too.

The other amusing statistic was that Lincoln holds a dubious title--one of probably 5 cities in the country (the other four are probably North Platte, Scottsbluff, Fremont, and Norfolk) where the 2-5 year home price gain is actually declining at a -3.44 percent clip. Yikes.