Escape the weather

Look beyond the standard indices on the level of crime, and there’s a wealth of information on other things. One of my favourites is the 2012 survey conducted by the US company Sperling’s for the New York Times.

In 2011 the company ranked all 379 U.S. metro areas according to the risks their citizens run from tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, hail, and weather events such as extreme rain, snow, heat and cold.

So if you’re thinking about where to move to the USA, the places with the lowest risk from weather and natural disasters are mainly in the Pacific Northwest.

At the top of the list are Corvallis and Salem in Oregon, followed by seven places in Washington State including Spokane, Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, and Olympia. Grand Junction in Colorado also makes the top 10.

As a measure of how safety and well-being list-making is growing, in 2013 Sperling’s followed this with a list of the “Most Secure Places to Live in the US”, looking at metropolitan areas with a population of 500,000 or more.

The list addressed almost everything you could think of to do with safe, comfortable and stress-free living – economic stability, crime statistics, extreme weather, risk of natural disasters, housing depreciation, foreclosures, air quality, environmental hazards, life expectancy, motor vehicle fatalities, and employment numbers.

Top of the list of large metro areas was Bethesda–Gaithersburg–Frederick, in Maryland, followed by the Grand Rapids-Wyoming Metropolitan Area in Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Also featuring in the top 10 were; Omaha, Nebraska, San Francisco–San Mateo–Redwood City, California, Portland, Oregon and Dallas.

Anyone planning to move people are planning to move to the USA with their families might like to note the 2010 Parenting Magazine list of safest cities for families. Topping the list was Scottsdale, Arizona, followed by Arlington, Virginia, and El Paso, Texas. Ann Arbor, Michigan; Mesa, Arizona; Anaheim, California; San Diego; Portland, Oregon; New York City and Mobile, Alabama made up the list.