http://www.mormontimes.com/article/17741/The-10-best-places-to-raise-an-LDS-family-outside-of-Utah?s_cid=newsline

Amazingly bizarre article. They identify the top ten places outside Utah to raise an LDS family. Crazy methodology: housing affordability is deemed less important than the teen smoking rate for a community.

What's even odder is that their methodology seems to attach high importance to the % of adults with college degrees (many Utah communities, with SAHMs who started but did not finish college, would not score highly in this area), and their list is populated with well-known college towns like Ames, Iowa and College Station, PA. I'm sure these towns are nice places to live, but most likely are NOT bastions of the kind of conservatism these TBMs are seeking. If these towns have low teen smoking rates, it may be due to the well-educated populace rather than the presence of a Utah-style theocracy.

Good for a laugh, at any rate.

They would immediately perceive it as "evil."

Exactly!! Many of these college towns are way too liberal or permissive for LDS tastes....but they score high on this article's methodology because of skewing toward high rates of undergrad degree attainment.

You hit the proverbly "SPIKE" and drove it home. Native Iowan moved to Rigby, ID (don't know what I/we were thinking) and if "they" LDS seen you smoking a marlboro light or drinking a bud light--- They hated you/us and were done talking to us and even spray painted move on our wheel barrow--- beautiful area but some severly "messed up" people and we did dust our mocassins. Never been to such an "EVIL" place and would not recommend anyone in their sound mind to travel to or anywhere near. T^hat is all!!!!

and B - Good places outside of UTAH? Are they serious? Utah is a terrible, toxic place to raise kids. It CAN be done well if you are a particularly clever parent but the assumption that UTAH is a good place to raise Mormon kids is absolutely nuts. Um, let's see - high rates of internet porn usage, high rates of anti-depressant usage, higher teen suicide, parents more likely to go bankrupt or be a victim of a scam, highest plastic surgery in the nation, lowest spending on schools and didn't one magazine rate Utah dead last overall as a good place for kids. And many kids I observed there were either very badly behaved in public, very bad-mannered/ rude, very arrogant...not the kind of companions you'd choose for your child. The entire premise of this article is skewed from the start.

Yep, it started with the crazy premise that Utah is a great place to raise kids. As one might expect, Idaho Falls rated in the top ten---I thought Idaho Falls WAS in Utah, lol.

Ithaca NY? HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, it's conveniently located near the Palmyra, NY Temple....

Seriously, the list keeps naming relatively small college towns where the % of the population with bachelor's degrees would be expected to be high, because of the presence of faculty and non-staff faculty who are well-educated.

Not to mention that Cornel is HARDLY a bastion of conservative thought.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your testimony is true.

Yikes! State College is #1? I live in State College. I'm really not sure how much LDS would like it here. Don't get me wrong; it's a great place to live, but it is very liberal. I have some LDS friends in the area, and they say the branch is very small. State College's nickname is Happy Valley, so maybe that's why they are attracted. :)

LOL. The article does not disclose the exact/full methodology used. They do state that housing costs are less highly ranked than teenaged smoking rates, and several of the city descriptions mention the high % of college degrees. Well, duh, in a small college town, where most people who live there teach or work at the college or university, of course you'd expect that. Just like Provo has the youngest median age of any city in the USA (>30,000 BYU students in a town of 100,000...sort of lowers the average age a bit....Provo isn't tiny, but it's home to a huge university). The methodology seems to be selecting towns with high education and high rates of public health (defined as low smoking rates) which is to be expected in a town with highly educated people, LDS or not. Any TBM using this list to select a living location is in for a big surprise, except for Idaho Falls.

Hope the Mos don't start moving in and making a mess of things.

That is really odd. State College for Mormons??? I don't think so. What a liberal place that is. Obama got votes there bigtime and only in Philly and Pittsburg areas did he have success. The rest of PA is conservative.

State College is home to Penn State main campus - the Number #1 party school in the U.S.

Oh my heck.....

Somehow the Mormons in Iowa City manage to avoid the appearance of evil and like the Big Ten college town. Yes, housing is pricier than most places and the smoking rate is low.

Perhaps it is the abundance of their own membership studying or practicing at the University's College of Dentistry or the College of Medicine?

Some of them attend school then remain....they just built a big chapel (Sunday meeting building) with a fake steeple within the past couple of years. It is, however, a long trip to the nearest temple (Nauvoo).

That's all we need. A Mormon publication encouraging them to move here- like the Mormons aren't breeding at rabbit speed as it is.

I'm a little surprised my area didn't make the list. It's been nicknamed little Utah and we are so far from Utah it isn't funny.

Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah and more Utah....keep them all fenced in in Utah. Then we don't have to deal with them.

For Momons:

Cooler climate, so Momo garmies can be worn year-round.
No beaches or bodies of water, because Satan rules the water.
Places where everybody is already weird.
Wherever they're not very fashion conscious.
No bars, strip clubs.
Where people are really stupid and/or gullible.
Where MLM business would do well.

Mormons don't fit in anywhere, except in Utah.

For myself I'd choose places that have fewer children, no litter, no smog, tons of single men, good hygiene, high incomes, expensive beautiful houses, the best looking people.

That doesn't mean that I am all of those things!

Mormons are so arrogant to think that they own education! Mormons are the dumbest, most closed-minded people I know. Other religious groups have a much better attitude about learning. It's just like BYU thinking they can own football, like Notre Dame does!

Or how about a list of criteria for ExMo's/NeverMo's who wish to avoid TBMs?

---low rate of Temple Recommend ownership
---low rate of LDS activity
---low # of members as a % of total population
---lower number of children per family (i.e. goal would be two, not four-five-six)
---high amount of school expenditures per child (Utah is #50)
---low rate of SAHMs vs. moms with a career
---low % of BSA units controlled by LDS, vs. non-LDS BSA units
---public recreation facilities open SEVEN days a week, not closed Sunday and Monday.
---no restrictions on Sunday commerce or sales.

What strikes me as odd is that (I thought) the college completion rate for women at BYU is lower than for men, so that the graduation rates for the Y would be lower than for secular or non-LDS schools (where women are there to learn, not find a husband). Sure, Provo ranks high when you measure % of residents with degrees, but then 40% of the population are Y students. If you ran these "% of residents with college degrees" in heavily LDS towns WITHOUT a major university (i.e. exclude Orem, Provo), I wonder just how good (or bad) the numbers would look. While most of the men might have degrees, what about the women?

The other issue with looking at upscale communities is that the income needed to buy a house there would more or less select for college grads. Stats for a middle-class, but not upscale, heavily LDS community would be very interesting, particularly if there was a breakdown between men and women holding a degree.

It's it actually State College, PA that you meant. College Station is in Texas and is home to the first university in Texas, Texas A&M (WHOOP!).

And it is #2. Idaho Falls, ID.

Lynchburg, Va. is the home of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University . . . hence the high number of college grads and low number of teen smokers . . .

It would be heavily conservative but I guarrantee you faithfull Mormons would not be welcomed with open arms!

My daughter used to live in Lynchburg. She said it made Provo look liberal. Not only can Liberty students not go to R or even PG-13 movies, but they station honor code Nazi's at the movie theater and if they notice anyone they think might be a Liberty student going into the wrong type of movie, or see a girl wearing pants, they are reported.

They also organized a group to run Target out of town because it was owned by California liberals and because it was there, Wal-Mart, which is owned by good Christian millionaires, could not come in. So they got the Target shut down and built a Wal-Mart god-approved supercenter.

But what is just freakin hillarious about it being on the list of this article is that they HATE Mormons there. Well, not everyone, but you know what I'm saying--they're as welcome as an Athiest in Provo. Yeah, let's move our children to an even more conservative place where they will be taunted and hated. But hey, there are all those Liberty students with their liberal arts/religious studies degrees who will one day be in Sarah Palin's cabinet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2011 10:01PM by NormaRae.

Let's see:

State College, PA: Home to one of the perennial top party schools in the US. And by party, we mean adult beverages. Capiche?

Ithica, NY: A bastion of liberalism. And bloody cold to boot, with no lovely western powder upon which you can ski or snowboard. Noted for its high rate of winter depression among residents. Utah natives should feel right at home.

Lynchburg, Virginia: Home to Liberty University. Sure, try to raise a Mo kid here. Good luck with that.

Boise, Idaho, and Ames, Iowa: Both are on Money Magazine's 2010 list of 25 Best Places to...Retire. Wait, you said that you wanted to raise a family?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2011 09:28PM by summer.

I find it ironic that the only Mormon from PA that I knew at BYU was from State College.

I think the main impetus in choosing these places was due to the Mormon population already established there....

Just my 2C.

out