How the corridor stacks up against the best places to live

Unfortunately, the corridor is nowhere to be found on the new Money Magazine list of the 100 Best Places to Live. In fact, Louisiana hasn’t had a presence on the list at least since 2005. So where have we gone wrong? Turns out we just don’t stack up in a number of areas — ranging from auto insurance premiums to divorce rates. A comparison of the 11 corridor cities included in the magazine’s study and the 100 Best Places shows, for example, that job growth between 2000 and 2008 averaged 19.8% for the 100 Best Places. Only two corridor cities beat that — Gonzales, where job growth was 22.34%, and Zachary, 21.25%. Those who live in the 100 Best Places pay an average of $1,744 in auto insurance premiums, while those in the selected cities along the corridor pay an average of $2,635. With the exception of Mandeville and Zachary, reading and math scores are much higher in the 100 Best Places than along the corridor. Likewise, 71.9% of those who live in the 100 Best Places have completed some college, while an average of 56.7% have done so in the 11 corridor cities. Meanwhile, median family income is lower and crime and divorce are more frequent in the corridor cities than in the 100 Best Places. On the bright side, the corridor cities beat the 100 Best Places average with lower median home prices and property taxes. And for all the complaining we do about traffic, median commute times are much lower along the corridor than they are in the 100 Best Places, unless you live in Mandeville, Slidell, Zachary or Denham Springs. Jefferson, Metairie and New Orleans stomped the 100 Best Places in one category — bars within 15 miles. The 100 Best Places’ average was 174, while those three corridor cities each had more than 500. Money Magazine based its rankings of small towns on data from Onboard Informatics. To do your own comparison, click here.