These days we are flooded with “best” and “worst” lists, most of which are really more for entertainment (e.g., worst dressed women, and the Ignoble Awards for the most ridiculous research conducted).

The more useful lists mainly come from the United Nations system, ranking countries on various indices. The UNDP Human Development Index is perhaps the most comprehensive, combining economic and social indicators to measure quality of life. I’ve already discussed, in a recent column, how the Philippines ranks first among developing countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Equity rankings, i.e., the gap between our women and men in terms of access to opportunities is said to be the narrowest.

These international rankings are important to guide policymakers and groups working in development. The World Economic Forum notes, for example, that the number of Filipinas with positions in the Cabinet has been dropping, and that wages of women, compared to men doing the same work, have also been declining.

At times though, these figures may seem distant and irrelevant, so international agencies have learned to repackage and release their research with more attractive press statements, like “best places to be a mother.”

Recently, Noemi Bayoneta-Leis of Health Action Information Network sent me an electronic clipping, “best places to raise a child in.” After I received the article about children, I went to the Internet for more research and was surprised to find quite a few of these most child-friendly rankings. They’re all in the United States, but I thought it might still be useful to look at how they went about the research, and some of the results, and get some tips for the Philippines.

These lists are taken quite seriously and featured in business periodicals like Forbes and Businessweek. In fact, Forbes itself, which is better known for its list of wealthiest people in the world, commissioned one of the better studies on the best places to raise children. The lists are important for businesses because they are used by American families to help them decide on where to buy a home.

I’ll start with the list compiled by Location Inc., with the research directed by a geographer. (Let me do a quick promotion for my friends at the geography department of the University of the Philippines, UP being the only university in the Philippines that offers a degree in geography. Geographers don’t just do maps, they now have all kinds of research to help improve quality of life: how land is utilized, how accessible services are, the kinds of risks associated with a particular area.)

What Location did was to use six criteria to choose the best cities or towns within each of the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The criteria were: availability of good schools, low crime rate, high homeownership rates, high number of residents with college degrees, percentage of families with children, and single family homes.

It’s an interesting mix, some of which are self-explanatory like the availability of good schools. Others need some explaining: higher numbers of college graduates in an area, Location’s researchers reasoned, would mean greater pressure on local schools to maintain a high quality.

And the percentage of families with children? They figured that the more families with children, the more child-friendly the area would be. (In the Philippines, I don’t think that criterion will make sense since nearly all households have children.) The results? From Los Altos in the San Francisco metropolitan area to Sugar Land in the Houston area, the winners were all small towns, telling us that the larger cities, at least in America, probably aren’t the best places for raising children.

Now if you don’t have a choice and have to live in the big city, Forbes does have a survey that ranks these metropolitan areas in terms of “best places to educate children.” Forbes’ criteria are: strength of the public school system, options for private schools, popularity of libraries, and abundance of higher learning institutions.

The Obama family will be pleased to know that the Washington DC-Arlington area came up at the top of the list, followed by Madison, Wisconsin; Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, Massachusetts; Baltimore-Towson, Maryland; and Akron, Ohio. Incidentally, the Obamas have been looking for schools for their children and are said to be considering public schools, as well as Georgetown Day School, where Bill Clinton’s daughter was sent, and Sidwell Friends, which is run by the Quakers.

Safety, community, education

Businessweek has still another survey of best places to raise kids, summarizing their criteria as “safety, community and education.” OnBoard, a real estate research company, did the data-crunching looking at national test scores, cost of living, recreational and cultural activities, number of schools, and crime rates.

Again, the winners tended to be small towns. First place went to Groesbeck, a small town outside Cincinnati with 7,200 people. The Businessweek article describes the town as having mostly “one-floor ranch houses and multifamily condo units lining the streets, with the occasional patch of farmland, dotted with cows, chickens and bales of hay.” Yet, it has one of the best elementary schools in the state (based on test scores), two parks, and several soccer and baseball fields. Kids can also kayak on the Great Miami River, and there are several hiking trails. The city of Cincinnati, half an hour away, has museums, an aquarium, a zoo.

Reading about Groesbeck made me think of our own situation. Ideally, one should be able to live in a fairly quiet and safe suburb, but not too far from good schools, libraries, children’s recreation centers, and of course be connected to the world through the Internet. It could have worked out with the idea of a Mega Manila, living, say, in Angono and commuting to Quezon City, but we’ve killed those options with congestion and high crime rates.

There’s hope yet for other emerging metropolitan areas, if they’d be careful about planning, not just for the city center but for adjoining towns. Right now, I would consider the cities of Cebu, Iloilo and Dumaguete as good places to raise children. Iloilo is sometimes called the local Athens because of all its schools, yet within a 15-minute drive, still in the city, you have places that are truly rustic (chickens, carabaos, cogon?). Cebu and Dumaguete have all that, too, and the mountains and the sea.

But all this is day-dreaming. I don’t have those options right now, being tied to teaching in Manila and elderly parents who would find it difficult adjusting to a new place. I’ll dream on, but in the meantime, the Inquirer or some other special interest group (UNICEF for children) can begin to rate the quality of life in our cities, not just for children but for the elderly, for women and for families in general.

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Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph