All Over Albany

Listomania

Updated June 8, 2010

Everybody loves a good list. And it seems like every month or so, the Capital Region or New York State (or something around here) ends being ranked on some sort of list.

We got thinking about this recently -- and came to the only logical conclusion: there needs to be a list of lists.

And here it is.

Lists are listed in no particular order. We just pulled these from the AOA archive. There are no doubt more of them. If you know of one that's not on here, please share!

Well being

Forbes ranked the Albany metro area among the top 10 big metros for raising a family.

The Albany metro area ranked #18 for quality of life among the nation's 67 biggest metros, according to an analysis by Portfolio.com.

A paper published in 2009 in the journal Science ranked New York State as the state with people reporting the "lowest satisfaction with life."

A paper published in 2008 in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science reported that people New York State ranked #2 in the nation for "openness to experience" and #3 for "neuroticism" (those are both "Big Five" personality traits).

New York State ranked 7th nationally on the 2010 "human development index" published by the American Human Development Project. The two local Congressional district both ranked better than 60 percent of the rest of the country.

Young adults

In recent rankings for the Daily Beast, Richard Florida ranked the Albany metro area the 23rd best area for new college grads.

Florida ranked the Albany area as the 20th best city for Gen Y in 2009.

Portfolio.com recently ranked the Capital Region as the 24th best area for young adults among the 76 largest metros.

Environment

The American City Business Journals ranked the Capital Region the 10th greenest metro area among 43 metros.

In 2008, the Brookings Insitution ranked the Capital Region 51st among the nation's largest metros for carbon footprint per capita.

Transportation

A firm called INRX reported the Capital Region was 75th among the top 100 metros for traffic congestion in 2008.

ALB ranked #54 among the top 100 airports for on-time arrivals, according to a Brookings Institution report.

Health

In a 2009 ranking of New York's fattest counties based on state and CDC data: Schenectady was 23rd, Rensselaer 37th, Saratoga 43 and Albany 57th.

Saratoga County is the second "healthiest" county in New York State, according to rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Population

New York is still the 3rd most populous state, according the Census Bureau.

A Pew Research Center study of data from 2005-2007 ranked New York #3 among states with the most number of residents migrating to other states (it also ranked #8 for the most number of people moving in).

Economy

In 2010, Forbes ranked the Albany metro area 15th among the "most innovative cities."

Business Insider ranked the Capital Region 15th on a list of "20 Cities That Are Having An Awesome Recovery."

According to figures released by New York State in November 2009 (and some analysis by AOA), Albany County ranked #6 and Schenectady County #7 for most stimulus money per capita.

Crime

Colonie topped the list of lowest-crime cities in CQ Press' 2009 rankings. (And, no, it's not actually a city.)

Et cetera

Based on Google Trends data, Silicon Alley Insider ranked Albany the 9th most obscene city in 2008.

Skidmore College was ranked as the 5th most expensive college in the nation in 2009 by a site called College Grotto.

In a 2009 ranking of supermarket chains by Consumer Reports, Hannaford ranked #21 and Price Chopper #27.

All About Beer Magazine ranked Mahar's in Albany as the 99th best place in the nation to have a beer.

plane photo: Flickr user samholland
color-coded map: American Human Development Project

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tags: Capital Region, data, nerding out