B'game Rating: #38

The wizards at the San Francisco magazine have rated all 101 cities and towns in the Bay Area and we came out at number 38.  By combining scores for Education, Diversity, Health, Transit, Affordability, Public Safety, Culture and their own fudge factor "Editors' Rank", they arrive at Albany being the best place to live in the Bay Area.  Six years ago we were labelled as a sort of Utopia by the same magazine, so let's dig in a bit deeper.  Here are the scores

I get the good scores for Education and Transit.  Our public schools are quite good in spite of occasional issues with administrators at BIS and BHS and there are a lot of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher.  I also get how we land near the bottom in Affordability since we have always been an expensive place to live--it is more a result of the other criteria than an input on its own.  But how is B'game in the bottom half on Health?  They use physicians per capita, air quality scores and percentage of residents without health insurance.  With a major hospital in town and doctor's offices surrounding it, we must rate pretty high on the first one.  I hear at the meetings on the SFO runway noise that some residents also smell jet fuel fumes, but I doubt our air quality is below the median.

The real head-scratchers are Public Safety on the downside and Culture on the upside.  B'game has recently returned to "full strength" with 40 sworn officers and crime rates (aside from car break-ins mostly at Bayfront hotels) are pretty low.  Oakland ranked just ahead of us at 57!  And they do mean Oakland, California!!  There must be some spreadsheet error somewhere at the magazine.

I also cannot fathom how we got to number 15 in the whole Bay Area on Culture when the critieria are artistic venues per capita (we've got none other than the tiny art museum on the north end), the number of residents who list their occupation as "artist" (on Open Studio weekends we have a couple), and liquor licenses per capita.  I guess if one considers drinking with muzak playing "culture" we do OK.  While #38 isn't bad, I can't take much heart in the overall subjective nature of it all.  You won't catch many B'gamers moving to Colma (#18) or Pacifica (#22) or Belmont (#24).  I bet we just stay put.   
 

Comments

[Bruce Dickinson]

Joe, it's pretty obvious that by "culture" they mean residents living in Burlingame that have made significant cultural contributions.

Also, it's very obvious that the ranking of famous residents is not weighted by net worth, because if it were, Burlingame would be #1!

*wink*

[Joe]

I am following where you are going with this, BD. How many Ferrari mechanics does it take to change a light bulb?

[Hollyroller]

I agree with Mr. Dickinson.
I believe the "Burlingame Voice" should have raised the number by a minimum of 20 points.

[Bruce Dickinson]

Joe, it takes eight (8) Ferrari mechanics to change a light bulb. One to put in the wrong bulb; one to force it in with a hammer; one to fix the socket; and five to go out a buy a new bulb!

Got one for ya:

What's the difference between a Tesla and a Porcupine?

A: On the porcupine, the prick is on the outside!

[J. Mir]

“Occasional issues with administrators at BIS?” That place was a hellhole. My kids hated it there, they suffered. They had to watch kids AND teachers get physically assaulted. That experience alone negated a lot of the good stuff in town.