slides: Rhode Island’s Best Communities 2013: #39 to #1

Friday, June 21, 2013

Tracey Minkin, GoLocalProv Features Editor

 

What's the best community in Rhode Island?

View Larger +

What is the best place in Rhode Island to live, whether you're a young single, a starting family, or empty-nesters? What city or town combines affordability, safety, schools, arts, culture and recreation and nightlife in the very best balance? GoLocalProv's 4th Annual Rhode Island's Best Communities takes a close, analytical look at all 39 cities and towns in the state to come up with that very answer. After more than 100 hours of analyzing thousands of data points, we have the answer for 2013.

Starting today: An entire week devoted to RI's Best Communities 2013

With updated data, GoLocalProv reveals the very latest look at every community from one end of the state to the other. Starting Monday, we reveal the rankings, starting from the bottom of the list at #39. Every day we'll reveal more communities, moving up the list toward the Top 10, which will appear on Thursday. What day will your town make the list? And at what ranking? Which towns ranked lower than yours? Which ones higher? Compare the rankings every day, as we move toward the #1 town.

Check the slides, below, for the latest rankings.

On Friday, GoLocal will reveal its Best Communities 2013 Chart, with the latest data on each city and town, so you can compare results across the state, from housing costs to NECAP scores, from crime rates to arts and culture sites.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

How GoLocalProv ranks Rhode Island's communities

To translate "great community" into a quantifiable assessment, we went to the data. With rankings created nationally by leading media sources like Kiplinger's and Money Magazine, we created our own set of criteria for what makes a community great. 

Our researchers spent hours poring over measures from public sources that help define a great place to live. We gathered and assessed housing prices, tax rates, median household incomes, crime statistics, and school performance on standardized tests in elementary, middle, and high schools. We counted places to go out and have fun, from bars and restaurants, to theaters, historic sites and museums, and golf courses. We even counted libraries. (For a full explanation of our methodology and sources, go here.)

New for 2013: What's best about your town?

Get ready to vote, Rhode Island. Every town profile for 2013 will feature a special poll with some of the best aspects of your town, and you'll get to choose what's the very best and see the real-time results all week.

New for 2013: Voices from the communities

GoLocal will speak with local officials, as well as experts on communities and urban life throughout the week, sharing their insights on what makes our cities and towns more or less livable. Read what they have to say about how communities are changing and how that affects our lives right here in Rhode Island.

What the rankings mean... to you

This is Rhode Island, remember, and we're expecting to hear from you. How do you feel about your town's ranking? What do the measures we use tell you about your community? Join the conversation about RI's Best Communities here in comments, on your town's profile, and on Facebook, here. Share the piece, talk to your friends and neighbors, and enjoy the biggest backyard conversation Rhode Island has ever seen.

And stay tuned all week.

Research by Sean Quinn, Stefanie Hayes, E-Soo Kim, Ben McKay, Karen Mills, Michelle Johnson, and Kalena Crafton. Photography by Caitlin Gill. Cover photograph of Newport on home page by Alexander Nesbitt.

 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook