Today the County Council celebrated a published ranking by Fortune that put Silver Spring as “The Best Place to Raise a Family“. Given the barrage of crime and fleeing retail this is a shocking result. It was only a few months ago that the County Council was handing out free cameras and imposing curfews for Silver Spring. And now this is the best place in America to raise your family.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the inputs and criteria that helped Fortune come to this conclusion. They don’t provide a lot of information, and certainly don’t shed any insight on the actual variables or scores. They also do not let the reader know if any of the data was a paid partnership or promotion (it certainly appears that way based on how they have showcased different brands).
There were two criteria that automatically eliminated a location from being considered:
- Fortune eliminated locales with home sale prices that were more than twice as high as the state median and/or more than 2.75 times as high as the national median.
- Fortune eliminated any location that was 75% less diverse than the state median.
Rankings were then composed by compiling a variety of different sources, both from private companies, public associations, and government. No idea how each of these were weighed or what specific data each provided.
Here is a direct link from the article showcasing one of the data sources, Witylitic.
Here is another, Ineedana:
And another, ShareCare, founded by none other than Dr. Oz. Sharecare has a long history of accusations of paid promotions.
Let us be very hesitant to celebrate this ranking and in doing so push under the rug that many many changes that need to be put in place to make Silver Spring livable, must less a top place to live.
