Minnesota: Still a Good Place to Get Rich.
I don't much care for these Best Cities/States lists. But since they are frequently invoked to prove how Minnesotans pay too much in taxes and how companies are suckers for locating here, I try to pay attention to the rankings and methods used.
The latest is the 2008 Salary Value Index, which purports to tell us the top (and bottom) US cities for building personal net worth. It's conducted by a "leading provider of on-demand compensation and talent management solutions" which is obviously trying to generate some annual PR with its annual survey. [Which it got: h/t MSP Business Journal]
The top ten cities included No. 1 Plano, TX, No. 4 Minneapolis and No. 8 St. Paul. Plano is supposed to be a posh North Dallas suburb, but all I can recall passing through town was a prison and a crappy motel room. No. 2 Aurora, CO, only seems like it should have a prison.
The survey takes into account the usual nice stuff, like education levels, diversity of industry and cost of living, but it seems flawed by basing wealth potential on salaries, instead of things like level of real estate speculation, stock options and criminal enterprise.
Anyway, if you live here and are not rich, you have one less excuse.
Plano has changed. It's an endless series of cookie cutter housing enclaves punctuated with strip malls & shopping centers. The high school heroin ring has been gone for years and I believe they are no longer the suicide capital of Texas.
Posted by: Clay | July 01, 2008 at 08:11 AM