Places Rated Almanac: Your Guide to Finding the Best Places to Live in North America

I ordered this book to give me some idea of where I wanted to move to and settled down for retirement. It was very informative with a lot of great information. It gives you a wide range of info from traffic, schools, jobs, housing, cost of living, things to do, etc. This is a very useful resource if you are moving or retiring to another area or state. Excellent research tool!

We used this book when we lived in New York and decided we wanted to relocate "somewhere else." It was extremely useful in narrowing the choices to places that had attributes that were most important to us, which in our case were things such as cost of living, weather, education, healthcare. It also offers a ton of info on other factors such as public transportation, the arts, employment, etc. The book included a "quiz" you can give yourself, the answers to which will help you reveal to yourself which factors are in fact the most relevant to you. In reading some of the other reviews, I must point out that relocating is not something you base upon a book alone. It was a great reference point, but once we narrowed our choices to several areas, we then did more specific research on those areas via the internet, sending for info from Chambers of Commerce, making phone calls, in-person visits, etc. We ended up moving south and are extremely happy in our new area. In researching our new region, we found that many other people around here are also "transplants," thereby eliminating the aspect of feeling "foreign" in our new home town. Definitely an excellent resource I would recommend to anyone considering relocating.

This book is just great. I have bought every retirement-places-rated type of book that I can get my hands on and this author is by far the best. The millennium edition is twice as big as the last edition and every subject is covered that anyone would want to know about an area; cost of living, transportation, jobs, education, climate, crime, the arts, health care, recreation. I can't wait for the next edition to come out! We're not retiring any time soon so it's helpful to really be able to study and evaluate where we are going to want to retire.

Most complete book we've seen. Every question I've had so far has been answered. I found the 4TH. Edition (1995) in a used bookstore and this caused me to want the most recent publication. What we know about the area we're interested in for retirement has been confirmed by this book. David Savageau thinks like we do in planning and we appreciate all his work in the writing of this book.

I agree with the reviewer who stated that "you can't quantify quality of life...". So true, but this book gives an excellent starting point for finding a good place to live. Using myself as an example, I was born, raised, and still reside in Cleveland, Ohio. I always thought it was an awful place to live. Places Rated Almanac set me straight. Who wants the awful humidity of the Gulf coast? Who wants the fearful crime rate of Miami Florida? Do I really want to pay $350,000 for 900' of living space in San Diego California?Places Rated can't answer all questions, but then again, what book can? But it does the best job possible. That's why I rate it FIVE STARS.