Seattle, Des Moines Top List Of Kid-Friendly Cities

Seattle got an A, and ranked 1st in the nation among 20 major cities, for kid-friendliness in a new report released by Population Connection.

The Kid-Friendly Cities Report Card 2004, which examines the quality of children’s lives in America’s cities, is the ninth in the series dating back to 1987. Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, and Minneapolis rounded out the top 5 in the major cities Category.

Des Moines, Iowa got an A-plus and was ranked first among the 80 large cities that the report reviewed, followed by Spokane, WA, Fremont, CA, Madison, WI, and Yonkers, NY.

The nationwide 100 city report, the ninth in a series from Population Connection, finds that America is becoming a more kid- friendly place-with safer streets, lower rates of teen pregnancy, and better access to comprehensive health care for both mothers and children.

The study presents a broad picture of conditions where our children play, learn and grow. It examines each city’s kid- friendliness using 16 different quality-of-life indicators, arranged into 4 categories designed to illuminate the well-being of children — Population, Health, Education and Community.

Each city gets a grade in each of the 4 categories and an overall grade. Each city has a separate report card.

More than 28 million people live in the 20 cities in the major cities category. While this is only about 10 percent of the total population, it is an incredibly important 10 percent. A disproportionate share of our news, ideas, governance, influence, wealth, and popular culture comes from these cities.

The average major city has a population of about 1.42 million people (about the size of Philadelphia), including about 340,000 children under the age of 18. The major cities range in size from more than 8 million in New York City to just under 350,000 in St. Louis. Detroit has the highest proportion of children (31 percent), while San Francisco has the lowest (14.6 percent).

Population Connection defines a major city as the main city in an MSA (metropolitan statistical area) that contains at least 2.5 million people. Thus, places like St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Miami, with city populations of less than 400,000, are included as major cities while larger cities such as San Antonio, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee are not. A major city is determined by the population of the metro area — not the size of the core city.

Ranking of the major cities is as follows:
1. Seattle, WA: A
2. Boston, MA: A
3. San Diego, CA: A minus
4. San Francisco, CA: A minus
5. Minneapolis, MN: A minus
6. New York, NY: B plus
7. Denver, CO: B plus
8. Philadelphia, PA: B plus
9. Chicago, IL: B plus
10. Los Angeles, CA: B
11.St. Louis, MO: B
12. Washington, DC: B
13. Atlanta, GA: B
14. Baltimore, MD: B minus
15. Houston, TX: B minus
16. Dallas, TX: B minus
17. Miami, FL: C plus
18. Phoenix, AZ: C
19. Detroit, MI: C
20. Cleveland, OH: C minus

A little over 28 million people live in the 80 cities in the large cities category — almost the same number that live in the 20 major cities. Together, the large cities and major cities comprise the 100 largest cities (in population) in the United States.

The average large city has a population of about 350,000 (about the size of Wichita, KS), including approximately 91,000 children under the age of 18. The large cities range in size from more than one million in San Antonio to just over 191,000 in Irving, TX. Santa Ana, CA has the highest proportion of children (34.2 percent), while Madison, WI has the lowest (17.9 percent).

The overal ranking of large cities is as follows:
1. Des Moines, IA: A plus
2. Spokane, WA: A plus
3. Madison, WI: A
4. Fremont, CA: A
5. Yonkers, NY: A
6. Glendale, CA: A
7. Kansas City, MO: A
8. Indianapolis, IN: A
9. Fort Wayne, IN: A minus
10. St. Paul, MN: A minus
11. Raleigh, NC: A minus
12. Tacoma, WA: A minus
13. Anchorage, AK: A minus
14. San Jose, CA: A minus
15. Greensboro, NC: A minus
16. Portland, OR: A minus
17. Lincoln, NE: A minus
18. Lexington, KY: A minus
19. Virginia Beach, VA: A minus
20. Grand Rapids, MI: B plus
21. Rochester, NY: B plus
22. Pittsburgh, PA: B plus
23. Omaha, NE: B plus
24. Louisville, KY: B plus
25. Oakland, CA: B plus
26. Honolulu, HI: B plus
27. Jersey City, NJ: B plus
28. Austin, TX: B plus
29. Wichita, KS: B plus
30. Buffalo, NY: B plus
31. Irving, TX: B plus
32. Plano, TX: B plus
33. Colorado Springs, CO: B plus
34. Scottsdale, AZ: B plus
35. Augusta, GA: B
36. Aurora, CO: B
37. Sacramento, CA: B
38. Newark, NJ: B
39. Charlotte, NC: B
40. Anaheim, CA: B
41. Riverside, CA: B
42. Arlington, TX: B
43. Long Beach, CA: B
44. Garland, TX: B
45. Milwaukee, WI: B
46. Akron, OH: B
47. Columbus, OH: B
48. Mesa, AZ: B
49. Tucson, AZ: B
50. Norfolk, VA: B minus
51. Jacksonville, FL: B minus
52. Fort Worth, TX: B minus
53. Albuquerque, NM: B minus
54. San Antonio, TX: B minus
55. Chesapeake, VA: B minus
56. Glendale, AZ: B minus
57. Hialeah, FL: B minus
58. Toledo, OH: B minus
59. Santa Ana, CA: B minus
60. Cincinnati, OH: B minus
61. Tampa, FL: B minus
62. Corpus Christi, TX: B minus
63. Stockton, CA: C plus
64. Lubbock, TX: C plus
65. Richmond, VA: C plus
66. Tulsa, OK: C plus
67. Nashville, TN: C plus
68. Las Vegas, NV: C plus
69. Montgomery, AL: C plus
70. St. Petersburg, FL: C plus
71. Fresno, CA: C plus
72. Oklahoma City, OK: C plus
73. Mobile, AL: C
74. El Paso, TX: C
75. Baton Rouge, LA: C
76. Bakersfield, CA: C
77. Memphis, TN: C minus
78. New Orleans, LA: C minus
79. Shreveport, LA: C minus
80. Birmingham, AL: C minus
For a complete list of all cities, go to KidFriendlyCities.org/.