Nice Suburbs, If You Can Get There

Business Week has released its list of the "25 Best Affordable Suburbs," a curious sort of beast that has no outright winner—no one, presumably, is going to up and move to a faraway suburb based on its ranking, as they must do in response to the Best Places to Retire or Best Cities to Live In. Instead, the list identifies the most appealing suburb in each of 26 metropolitan areas, from New York City to Iowa City, working with crime rates, cost of living, home prices and school stats. For a list of national scope, the 25 Best Burbs turns out to be frustratingly parochial.

What's stranger still is the monstrous chip the magazine wears on its shoulder about haute-suburbia: "For hedge-fund managers, plastic surgeons, corporate lawyers, and other people who earn millions a year, choosing a suburb is not about affordability but convenience and, frankly, prestige," snarls writer Mara Roney in her introduction to the list. Has convenience ever been made to sound so wretched? "Sure, you might own the cheapest house in a top suburb," she chastises suburban wannabes, "but is that really worth it?"

The correct answer, is No, nothing is worth living next to an Iowa City hedge-fund manager. The list, with its metro area in parentheses, follows:


Sandia Heights, N.M. (Albuquerque)
Roswell, Ga. (Atlanta)
Columbia, Md. (Baltimore)
Sharon, Mass. (Boston)
Mattews, N.C. (Charlotte)
Lake Zurich, Ill. (Chicago)
Evendale, Ohio (Cincinnati)
Flower Mound/Lewisville, TX. (Dallas)
Castle Rock, Colo. (Denver)
Weston, Fla. (Fort Lauderdale)
Sugarland, TX. (Houston)
Noblesville, Ind. (Indianapolis)
Coralville, Iowa (Iowa City)
Shawnee, Kan. (Kansas City)
Santa Clarita, Calif. (Los Angeles)
Lakeville, Minn. (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
Livingston, N.J., (Newark)
West Nyack, N.Y. (New York)
Elkhorn, Neb. (Omaha)
West Chester, Pa. (Philadelphia)
Folsom, CA. (Sacramento)
Kaysville, Utah (Salt Lake City)
Mukilteo, WA. (Seattle)
Saint Charles, Mo. (St. Louis)
Herndon, Va. (Washington)