Audio By Carbonatix
According to a study conducted by Schoolaroo, Denver is the worst city in the nation (out of 151 it looked at, anyway) to raise a family. The “study” ranked 151 cities in seven categories – Education, Finances, Health Care, Home Atmosphere, Leisure, Quality of Life and Safety.
Denver came in dead last overall, though not in any single category. The big winner was Yonkers, New York, to which the response even from residents of Yonkers was: Yonkers? Really?
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that a website like Schoolaroo – which sounds like it was designed by Ned Flanders – would be less than accurate about something as complex as quality of life. It also draws into question what we perhaps too generously define as a “study.” Schoolaroo is a website ostensibly devoted to scholarship information, but one that apparently can’t even string together a decent sentence: The folks behind it tout their completely unqualified opinion on national family livability by saying that they “conducted a comprehensive report” on the subject. You don’t really conduct a report, Schoolaroo. Perhaps your writers needed more…er, Schoolaroo.
And really, those of us who have raised (or are raising) a family in Denver know this ranking to be utterly ridiculous. Families move to Denver quite often because of – not in spite of – the quality of family life offered here. It’s a little silly to suggest that a city with issues related to rapid growth might want to do better in terms of attracting a larger population.
And one more quibble – which isn’t really so minor – is that the interactive map provided by Schoolaroo to illustrate its findings suggests that it’s not Denver it’s even measuring, but Aurora. Aurora might be Denver metro, but is Aurora the same as Denver? Absolutely not – and that’s something that both Aurora and Denver would agree upon.
So yes, Schoolaroo’s study sucks. But let’s look at exactly why, category by category.
Education
Granted, even a suspect study like Schoolaroo’s ranked Denver’s educational opportunities relatively high – it was our highest mark, actually, at No. 50. And we do have some ground to make up in terms of educational support for public schooling – but the teachers we do have, and the experiences of our kids, are more than deserving of excellent marks. Between the strong tradition of public education at schools like East High to a panoply of choices in terms of focus programs, charter schools and private options, Denver schoolkids have it pretty good. Room for improvement? Yes. A reason not to live here? Nope.
Finances
We presume that the sky-high housing market more or less killed Denver’s numbers here, just as they surely did in cities that have it far worse – meaning New York City and essentially any city in California worth mentioning. Is the housing in Denver an issue? Of course it is. But the numbers don’t include things like the prevalence of gorgeous old brick homes, bungalows and Denver squares that could kick the clapboard-and-stucco asses of newer builds. Besides, even the numbers are suspect: They include dubious elements like the cost of a nanny. Let’s face it, if you have a nanny, you’re probably not consulting a site like Schoolaroo.
Health Care
This category just makes no sense. It’s judged by only four factors: number of hospitals, number of pediatricians, number of uninsured, and number of hospital beds used per week, per capita. It’s such a narrow view of what health care is that it’s useless. Denver was rated the seventh-healthiest city in America according to Wallethub back in 2021 when it came to factors like fitness, green space and food. We know 2022 wasn’t the best year for everyone, but it wasn’t that bad.
Home Atmosphere
Here’s another category with way too small of a data set to be anything resembling reliable. This vaguely named element is made up of only three factors: divorce rates, marriage duration and alcoholism. Apparently, Denver is composed completely of drunk divorcees. (Thanks, Coors.) But speaking as a guy who went through a messy divorce with two kids? My “home atmosphere” post-divorce was a hell of a lot better than the one that came before it. To generalize that divorce is always bad and long marriages are always good – that’s some archaic and backwards shit right there, Schoolaroo.
It’s true, we have so few leisure options here. Too bad we can’t just run up and down the steps at an awesome national treasure like Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
CMHOF
Leisure
Oh, come on. Nearly nine out of ten Denver residents live within a ten-minute walk of a park. People move here for the access to nature and activities you can pursue therein: hiking, biking, skiing, snowboarding. And it’s myopic to consider only those pluses within the city limits – we have too many amazing spots in the areas surrounding Denver to even list with respectable accuracy. But here’s one mention of one spot that by itself should win this category for the Mile High City: Red Rocks, which is actually a Denver Mountain Park. Case closed.
Quality of Life
Again, the elements of this category are misleading: air quality, water quality and noise pollution. All important factors in terms of health and wellness, but certainly not fully indicative of “quality of life.” It’s a valid wake-up call for Denverites, though, that our air and water and noise levels might need some attention.
Safety
Measurements such as this are far more than the sum of their parts; to be fair, this category is more thorough than some of the others, including not only rates of both nonviolent and violent crime, but also police and firefighter numbers per capita, watch groups organized in neighborhoods, sex offenders registered, and (tragically) school shootings. All pertinent data, but safety isn’t a numeric measure, but an emotional one. The question is this: Do parents feel safe raising families in Denver? Based on the numbers that come and stay, the answer is demonstrably yes.
In the end, “studies” like this don’t mean much. They’re just PR stunts meant to draw a digital audience, to create hits related to hot-button issues that will spark interest, outrage, whatever. It’s marketing, not truth; propaganda, not science.
It’s like the apocryphal line from Mark Twain – that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. In this case, Schoolaroo has impressively provided all three.
