The Best Places to Live in 2007

When you think about places to live, there are usually ups and downs to most of the locations you come up with. I started off in North Carolina where I grew up. Charlotte is an amazing city with awesome child health care (apparently it's one of the best places to have a baby!). It provides the city life with the rural country life as well. As far as housing costs, it's low compared to some other similar places, but for me it had its downsides: it wasn't very close to mountains or beaches (two to three hours either way to get to one or the other), and it didn't have the extensive job choices for my career. So, I moved to Hollywood.

Now, I'm sure you can come up with a few Hollywood downsides - housing costs, plastic people, no weather changes (though some find that a positive), traffic and overcrowding. But I personally didn't realize how much I loved LA until I moved to another big city - New York. New York is filled with opportunity, amazing restaurants and entertainment, and enormous amounts of culture. However, it's very cold in the winter, housing costs are even worse than LA, and to get out and climb a mountain during the week - ain't gonna happen!

Anyway, according to a new report from CNN (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/) there are actually places that offer the best of all the worlds. Though I'm not completely convinced they truly are the best. For now, I'll stick to LA. Sure it's expensive, but I have my job, and every day feels like vacation. I'll catch you after my evening surf!!

Here are the winners: (based on economic opportunity, good schools, safe streets, things to do and a sense of community)

1. Middleton, WI 6. Papillion, NE
2. Hanover, NH 7. Milton, MA
3. Louisville, CO 8. Chaska, MN
4. Lake Mary, FL 9. Nether Providence, PA
5. Claremont, CA