Men's Health - The Best & Worst Cities for Men

This list is from December of 2013, but I just found it. Tucson ranks 51, pretty much mediocre. Makes me miss Seattle more than I often do.

The Best & Worst Cities for Men

By Men's Health, December 06, 2013

In 2008, the men of Seattle suffered a historic loss: their NBA Supersonics traveled 2,000 miles to Oklahoma City and turned into the Thunder along the way. To this day, every time Kevin Durant puts up SportsCenter numbers, you can practically hear an entire city of guys smacking their foreheads.

Well, here's a stat that should finally ease the pain: This year, Seattle executed a slam dunk over 99 other cities to take the title of American's Best City for Men. And OKC? A not-exactly-thunderous 87th place. We considered 33 criteria, covering health, fitness, and quality of life. After hours of Excel acrobatics, we had our list of all-star cities—and those that need to raise their game.

The 10 Best

1. Seattle, WA
2. Madison, WI
3. San Jose, CA
4. Raleigh, NC
5. Minneapolis, MN
6. Plano, TX
7. Austin, TX
8. Burlington, VT
9. St. Paul, MN
10. San Francisco, CA

---

11. Boise City, ID
12. Anaheim, CA
13. Aurora, CO
14. San Diego, CA
15. Fargo, ND
16. Boston, MA
17. Portland, OR
18. Salt Lake City, UT
19. Charlotte, NC
20. Oakland, CA

---

21. Durham, NC
22. Portland, ME
23. Colorado Springs, CO
24. Washington, DC
25. Denver, CO
26. Anchorage, AK
27. Lincoln, NE
28. Atlanta, GA
29. Sioux Falls, SD
30. Virginia Beach, VA

---

31. Los Angeles, CA
32. Lexington, KY
33. Manchester, NH
34. Phoenix, AZ
35. Fort Worth, TX
36. Orlando, FL
37. Honolulu, HI
38. Sacramento, CA
39. Bridgeport, CT
40. Omaha, NE

---

41. Nashville, TN
42. Reno, NV
43. New York, NY
44. Chesapeake, VA
45. Jersey City, NJ
46. Greensboro, NC
47. Laredo, TX
48. Cheyenne, WY
49. Riverside, CA
50. Dallas, TX

---

51. Tucson, AZ
52. Billings, MT
53. Des Moines, IA
54. Tampa, FL
55. Houston, TX
56. Columbus, OH
57. Bakersfield, CA
58. Fort Wayne, IN
59. Albuquerque, NM
60. El Paso, TX

---

61. Winston-Salem, NC
62. San Antonio, TX
63. Corpus Christi, TX
64. Lubbock, TX
65. Wilmington, DE
66. St. Petersburg, FL
67. Buffalo, NY
68. Miami, FL
69. Providence, RI
70. Pittsburgh, PA

---

71. Chicago, IL
72. Newark, NJ
73. Baton Rouge, LA
74. Fresno, CA
75. Stockton, CA
76. Las Vegas, NV
77. New Orleans, LA
78. Columbia, SC
79. Jacksonville, FL
80. Cincinnati, OH

---

81. Little Rock, AR
82. Wichita, KS
83. Norfolk, VA
84. San Bernardino, CA
85. Milwaukee, WI
86. Kansas City, MO
87. Oklahoma City, OK
88. Indianapolis, IN
89. Baltimore, MD

---

The 10 Worst

90. Tulsa, OK
91. Louisville, KY
92. Jackson, MS
93. Memphis, TN
94. Birmingham, AL
95. Toledo, OH
96. Cleveland, OH
97. Charleston, WV
98. St. Louis, MO
99. Detroit, MI
100. Philadelphia, PA

METHODOLOGY:
Mortality rates for the top 5 causes of death for men, colon cancer screening rate, smoking rate, binge-drinking rate, fruit and vegetable consumption, number of poor mental health days, percentage of the population who live near a park (CDC); prostate cancer incidence (National Cancer Institute); male life expectancy, male obesity rate, percentage of men who report adequate or any physical activity (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation); participation in various sports (SimplyMap); urologists per 10,000 men (Urology Care Foundation); percentage of restaurants the serve fast food, percentage who have bachelor's degrees, mean travel time to work, ratio of single men to single women (U.S. Census Bureau); cost of living index (Council for Community and Economic Research); violent crime and property crime per 10,000 (FBI); two-year change in employment, unemployment rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics), five-year count of unhealthy air days (EPA), one-year percent change in house prices (Federal Housing Finance Agency)

Jim Harrison's New Collection of Novellas Details the Life of Men

NPR's Alan Cheuse reviewed the new collection of novellas (longer than a short story, but not long enough to be a novel - or, novellas "are to novels as the sonata is to the full weight of the symphony"). Harrison is a master of this form, and in the new collection he offers two pieces that take very different perspectives on the life of men in all their humanness.

Harrison's New Novellas Present Men In Full

by ALAN CHEUSE
January 09, 2013

The River Swimmer: Novellas
by Jim Harrison
Hardcover, 240 pages

More on this book:
NPR reviews, interviews and more

Two years have gone by since I first suggested to President Obama that he create a new Cabinet post, and appoint distinguished fiction writer Jim Harrison as secretary for quality of life. The president still has not responded to my suggestion, and meanwhile Harrison has gone on to publish his latest book of novellas, which deepens and broadens his already openhearted and smart-minded sense of the way we live now, and what we might do to improve it.

It may be that our president, otherwise skilled in every way, has a blind eye when it comes to the novella form. I hope not. As someone who loves to compose novellas — which we might say are to novels as the sonata is to the full weight of the symphony — I've been counting the productions by Harrison, the reigning master of the form. With the publication of this new pair of pieces in this blooming good but intermediate form, it now comes to 17 for him, in six volumes over the years. Yours truly, lagging way behind him with only half a dozen, salutes Harrison — and continues to hope for his appointment to Cabinet status.

I have to say that Harrison has been hard put to better his personal best, "Legends of the Fall" (which came out in 1979), an epic in under a hundred pages about 20th century western American life. But with the lead piece in this new book, the autumnal novella he calls "The Land of Unlikeness," he comes quite close. "Legends" gave us the war-torn life spans of two generations of a larger-than-life Montana family, their land and their country, their loves and desires, the politics and history that enfolded them. All of this stretched out to fill the space between its boundary lines like an inter-mountain range of peaks and valleys. The new novella is much smaller in scale, giving us two weeks rather than two generations of time and focusing mainly on one character rather than a family-sized cast. But it's no less intense, as it enriches and enlarges an emotion-charged period in the life of Clive, a divorced Midwestern painter-turned-critic. Estranged from much of his family, Clive has returned from his usual Eastern haunts to his childhood home in rural northern Michigan to keep company with his aging mother, an ardent bird-watcher and churchgoer.

Jim Harrison is the author of more than 30 books, including Legends of the Fall and The Farmer's Daughter. Wyatt McSpadden/Courtesy of Grove/Atlantic

Clive longs for company and cohesion in his dessicated post-painting, post-married life. But he discovers almost immediately that he has wildly underestimated the power of the home place and the Proustian sense of "how memories reside in the landscape and arise when you revisit an area." Mooning over Laurette, his first girlfriend — long divorced herself, and living nearby in her old family farmhouse with a flirtatious female companion — Clive takes up painting again in order to re-create the grandest erotic encounter of his early manhood.

There's a lot more virtual eros in the companion novella, the title piece Harrison calls "The River Swimmer." The main character, a Midwestern boy named Thad, is in years not yet a man, but in experience triumphantly erotic. He swims great lakes and rivers, has visions of water babies swimming around him beneath the surface, and becomes involved with beautiful, attractive and willing girls his own age — with, as it happens, overbearing and successful fathers who sometimes try to kill him, and sometimes nearly succeed. In his outsized — almost cartoonlike — philosophical ambition, Thad declares "I just want to feel at home on earth ..." He already feels quite at home in water, which makes up a large part of our planet's surface, so when he strives to achieve his goal of feeling at home — not unlike that longing of Clive, his much more mature companion in this volume — he seems to have a good chance. No fathers wielding tire irons or tempting him with a life of luxury seem capable of deterring him much from his goal.

A boy with hopes as vast as oceans, a mature man entering into the solemnity of wholeness in a narrow range of life: together they make up what Tom Wolfe once announced — and failed to produce — as "a man in full."

What does the male version of quality of life really mean? Something like this, something like this. And female readers who don't give over some time to studying Harrison's version of it will be as foolish as the men.

Men's Health Best and Worst Cities for Men, 2013

For men who thinking about relocating - or who will want to relocate after seeing where their city places on this list - Men's Health offers their 12th annual analysis of the best and worst cities for men in the U.S. My own city of residence, Tucson, placed 45th out of 100 cities named. I guess it could be worse, I could live in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Best and Worst Cities for Men 2013

Our 12th annual statistical smackdown unveils America's top towns for men—and places to run from

By Margaret Niemiec, Researched by Christa Sgobba, Posted Date: December 14, 2012 

Back in the 1860s, a gold rush lured men from all over the country to the Boise Basin. Some struck it rich, but most simply struck out. Today most of the gold is gone, but in its place is something much more valuable: a rich vein of health, happiness, and fitness that the men of Boise, Idaho, are mining every day. 

We arrived at Boise after a long journey measured not in miles traveled but in numbers crunched. All told, we delved into more than a dozen data sources in order to assemble city rankings in 38 different criteria, including everything from air quality to unemployment, cost of living to death rates. We factored in property crime and criminally long commute times. We even took into account the ratio of single men to single women. (After all, what's a great town if you can't enjoy it with a great woman?) But as much as this is Boise's time to shine, the rest of America's men don't need to rush there again. We've unearthed five nuggets of wisdom that will enrich your life no matter where you live.

THE 10 BEST

1. Boise, ID
Health: A-
Quality of Life: A-
Fitness: B+

2. San Jose, CA
Health: A+
Quality of Life: C
Fitness: A

3. San Francisco, CA
Health: A-
Quality of Life: C+
Fitness: A

4. Plano, TX
Health: A+
Quality of Life: C+
Fitness: B

5. Seattle, WA
Health: A+
Quality of Life: C-
Fitness: A-

6. Burlington, VT
Health: A+
Quality of Life: A-
Fitness: C

7. Austin, TX
Health: B-
Quality of Life: B
Fitness: A+

8. Salt Lake City, UT
Health: A+
Quality of Life: C
Fitness: B

9. Madison, WI
Health: B+
Quality of Life: A-
Fitness: B-

10. Portland, OR
Health: B+
Quality of Life: C-
Fitness: B+


THE 10 WORST

91. Tulsa, OK
Health: F
Quality of Life: C
Fitness: F

92. Detroit, MI
Health: F
Quality of Life: F
Fitness: C

93. Columbia, SC
Health: F
Quality of Life: D-
Fitness: D-

94. Cleveland, OH
Health: D-
Quality of Life: F
Fitness: D

95. Memphis, TN
Health: F
Quality of Life: D-
Fitness: F

96. St. Louis, MO
Health: F
Quality of Life: F
Fitness: D

97. Toledo, OH
Health: F
Quality of Life: D-
Fitness: D-

98. Charleston, WV
Health: F
Quality of Life: D-
Fitness: F

99. Philadelphia, PA
Health: F
Quality of Life: F
Fitness: D

100. Birmingham, AL
Health: F
Quality of Life: D-
Fitness: F

And make sure you check out these 13 Places to Visit in 2013.

Boise, ID: Win the rat race
Eighteen minutes. That's the average commute time for our boys in Boise. Now, given that new Brown University research finds that the less time you spend commuting, the more minutes you have for sleep, exercise, and making your own meals, it's no wonder Boise took the top spot overall. The secret? Pedal power. See, when you drive, your commute is susceptible to slowdowns from packed roadways, but travel time on a bike is the same every day, explains Boise State University professor George Knight, M.A., founder and director of the school's Bicycle Congress. And the city is definitely cycling-centric: More than 220 miles of on-street bike lanes and 46 miles of designated bike routes run through Ada County. You'll also notice a raft of road-widening projects and find bike racks outside most public buildings. If you're a first-time bike commuter, spend a Saturday morning practicing your route to work.

San Jose, CA: Give your heart a lift
Weight training isn't a "cardio" workout, but it can prevent a coronary. Just look at San Jose, a city of lifters that also has the lowest rate of heart disease deaths. "When your muscles are toned, they're more effective at extracting oxygen," says Theodore Chow, M.D., a cardiologist at the Regional Medical Center of San Jose. "That means your heart doesn't have to work as hard." What's more, moderate resistance training (60 to 80 percent of your 1-rep max) may lower your blood pressure enough to significantly reduce some of your risk factors for heart disease, according to a 2011 study review published in the journal Hypertension.

San Francisco, CA: Defuse a gut bomb
If you want to see fat mammals in San Fran, check out the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. You won't spot many heavy humans here, though—the city has the lowest obesity rate in our ranking. That may also help explain why prostate cancer is as rare as flat roads here. "Following a low-fat, limited-calorie diet and maintaining a healthy weight, along with exercising regularly, contribute to reducing the incidence of prostate cancer," says Peter Carroll, M.D., M.P.H., the chairman of the urology department at the University of California at San Francisco school of medicine.

Plano, TX: Survive your drive
Texas may have the highway with the fastest speed limit in the country (85 mph!), but Plano knows how to make drivers slow down. From 2005, the year before the city installed red-light cameras, to 2010, crashes at camera-monitored intersections decreased by almost 40 percent, according to the city's police department. The net effect: a motor vehicle accident death rate well below the national average. But even if your city is sans cameras, you can still reduce your own risk of being T-boned. "If you're the first car at a stop light, you have a duty to look for approaching traffic even when entering the intersection on green," says Jeff Agnew of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running.

Seattle, WA: Order venti protection
To fight the Big C, you need a Bigger C: coffee, the official beverage of Seattle. A new American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that drinking 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day reduces colorectal cancer risk by 15 percent. But it isn't just the java that's taming tumors in the city. "The above-average economy in Seattle may provide men here with better access to colon cancer screening," says Bruce Lin, M.D., a gastrointestinal oncologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center in the city. "And that's the number one way to prevent colon cancer." Worried about the colonoscopy prep? A 2012 study in Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology found that a combo of Gatorade and the laxative polyethylene glycol (found in Miralax) was just as effective as a traditional colon cleanser and easier to tolerate. The net effect: Study participants were more likely to comply. Talk with your doctor about switching.

The Full List

1 Boise, ID
2 San Jose, CA
3 San Francisco, CA
4 Plano, TX
5 Seattle, WA
6 Burlington, VT
7 Austin, TX
8 Salt Lake City, UT
9 Madison, WI
10 Portland, OR

11 Minneapolis, MN
12 St. Paul, MN
13 Aurora, CO
14 Raleigh, NC
15 Anaheim, CA
16 San Diego, CA
17 Virginia Beach, VA
18 Colorado Springs, CO
19 Oakland, CA
20 Lincoln, NE

21 Manchester, NH
22 Portland, ME
23 Boston, MA
24 Honolulu, HI
25 Washington, DC
26 Fargo, ND
27 Sioux Falls, SD
28 Denver, CO
29 Omaha, NE
30 Dallas, TX

31 Billings, MT
32 Jersey City, NJ
33 Charlotte, NC
34 New York, NY
35 Atlanta, GA
36 Durham, NC
37 Phoenix, AZ
38 Fort Worth, TX
39 Chesapeake, VA
40 Bridgeport, CT

41 Miami, FL
42 Fort Wayne, IN
43 San Antonio, TX
44 Sacramento, CA
45 Tucson, AZ
46 Albuquerque, NM
47 Los Angeles, CA
48 Houston, TX
49 Anchorage, AK
50 Reno, NV

51 Fresno, CA
52 Orlando, FL
53 Cheyenne, WY
54 Lexington, KY
55 El Paso, TX
56 Des Moines, IA
57 Laredo, TX
58 Riverside, CA
59 Nashville, TN

60 Newark, NJ
61 Bakersfield, CA
62 Greensboro, NC
63 Columbus, OH
64 Stockton, CA
65 Corpus Christi, TX
66 Providence, RI
67 Pittsburgh, PA
68 Lubbock, TX
69 Winston-Salem, NC

70 Chicago, IL
71 San Bernardino, CA
72 Cincinnati, OH
73 Wilmington, DE
74 Wichita, KS
75 Milwaukee, WI
76 Las Vegas, NV
77 Norfolk, VA
78 Baton Rouge, LA
79 Little Rock, AR

80 Tampa, FL
81 St. Petersburg, FL
82 Buffalo, NY
83 New Orleans, LA
84 Baltimore, MD
85 Jacksonville, FL
86 Kansas City, MO
87 Oklahoma City, OK
88 Louisville, KY
89 Indianapolis, IN

90 Jackson, MS
91 Tulsa, OK
92 Detroit, MI
93 Columbia, SC
94 Cleveland, OH
95 Memphis, TN
96 St. Louis, MO
97 Toledo, OH
98 Charleston, WV
99 Philadelphia, PA
100 Birmingham, AL