I am a complete and utter sucker for state rankings, especially those that are flattering to my home state and the handful of other states I could actually see myself living in.
Massachusetts tends to come out high when things that I value - education, health/healthcare, reproductive rights, worker protections inclusiveness/gay rights, crime rates - are used in the criteria, and not those that are less favorable, like cost of housing and weather.
In a recent CNBC rating of the best states to live in, my beloved Commonwealth was ranked ninth, wedged between Nebraska and North Dakota (as an aside, which I can't resist making, the only red states to make the Top Ten). We came in lower than our fellow New Englanders NH, Connecticut, and Maine, and lower than the #1 state to live in Vermont. Personally, I love Vermont, but my husband (a native) couldn't stand his home state. To each his own...(The other states in this particular Top Ten were Minnesota, NJ, and Hawaii, all places I could at least kinda-sorta imagine myself living, although I think I'd get sick of the perfect balmy weather in Hawaii.)
Given whose on top, most people can likely come up with at least some of the states languishing in the Bottom Ten when it comes to quality of life. Arkansas. Oklahoma. Alabama. Missouri. Utah. Georgia. Louisiana. Indiana. Texas. Tennessee.
The surprise to me on this list is Utah. Not that I can imagine living there, but it always strikes me as a reasonably good place to live, especially if you're LDS. But Utah gets dinged on not having enough primary care physicians and daycare centers, and having a dismal minimum wage.
Massachusetts gets points for having a ton of primary care providers, which I find somewhat ironic given that there are zero PCP's affiliated with my healthcare system (MGH/Brigham & Women) in the entire city of Boston who are taking new patients. I know this because last fall my PCP went concierge, and the only way I could get a Boston-based PCP was by agreeing to work with a resident physician. Which is fine, but it's not great for relationship-building, as the residents are only around for a couple of years.
Of course, quality of life doesn't seem to get in the way of being one of the top states for doing business in. Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Indiana may be crappy places to live - and I can guarantee that I will never, ever, ever in a million-billion years get to find this out up close and personal - but they're good for business.
According to the CNBC rankings, Ohio is the best place to do business, but Texas rates a number four position; Georgia comes in at seven; and Tennessee and Indiana round out the Top Ten. Massachusetts is number 15, higher than I would have predicted. Our cost of doing business is abysmal (49th out of 50), but this is counter-balanced by our quality of life (if you don't count housing and weather), our techiness (We're Number 8, a bit low as far as I'm concerned) and our education (We're Number 1!)
These rankings are, admittedly, pretty non-sensical, but I always get a kick out of them. And, hey, we could all use a bit more nonsense in our lives - and these ratings seem like relatively harmless nonsense.
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