Editorial: Johnson County among easiest, most intelligent places to live

Johnson County and Overland Park are used to some pretty high rankings on the ever-popular “top this and that” lists these days.

So a week after pointing out in this space that federal figures show Johnson County is struggling to create more high-paying jobs, here are two upbeat pieces of recent news.

Last week The New York Times featured a story and graphic titled, “Where are the hardest places to live in the U.S.?”

The hardest is Clay County in Kentucky, according to the data points used by The Times. They include education, median household income, life expectancy and obesity. The “easiest” place to live of 3,135 counties is Los Alamos County in New Mexico.

Johnson County turned up an impressive No. 11 on the list.

It excelled in median income and college-educated residents, and has a high average life expectancy of 81.2 years and an obesity rate of 30 percent.

Wyandotte County, however, was much lower on the rankings at No. 2,631.

A website called mylife.com posted a blog titled “The 10 most intelligent midsize cities.”

Smack dab on top is Overland Park, especially lauded for its high percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree, along with solid scores for the quality of its public schools and the city’s number of libraries.

The website also gave the city a shout-out for its “rise as a soccer mecca,” thanks to its large amateur soccer complex at 13700 Switzer Road.

By this week, mylife.com was featuring a different, well-timed list: “The 10 most patriotic cities.” San Diego is No. 1.

This story was originally published July 1, 2014 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Editorial: Johnson County among easiest, most intelligent places to live."