Naperville prides itself for being first on all sorts of lists including best schools, best libraries, best places to live, most sesame seeds on bagels; Winterset , Iowa may dispute the last one.
Money Magazine recently published the best places to live, and Naperville came in 45th place. How did we go from being the best place to live and raise a family to not even being listed among the Top-Ten. How does this happen in such a short period of time.
In 2016, Naperville was ranked 10th among the Top-50 best U.S. Cities, now just three years later we drop 35 slots to 45th. What’s changed? We have the same mayor, the same city manager, but we do have two new council members, Patrick Kelly and Theresa Sullivan. Could they be responsible, it’s doubtful but possible. Or is it that we still have Patty Gustin as a council member. That would seem more likely, but still, dropping 35 slots like a 35-pound bowl of mashed potatoes with gravy onto the passenger seat of your new vehicle is terrible.
Two other Illinois cities made it into the Top-100 list including Bolingbrook at #85 and Vernon Township at #65. Quick, does anyone know where Vernon Township is located. Of course not, but there it is, just 20 slots behind Naperville. If we are dropping an average of 12 slots per year, by the year 2024 Naperville will disappear from the Top-100.
The Top-3 cities on the list include, #1 Clarksville, Tennessee (population 153,000), #2) Round Rock, Texas (population 124,000) and #3 Fishers, Indiana (population 92,000). Money Magazines parameters for its Top 100 cities included cities with populations from 50,000 up to 300,000. It’s possible if Naperville can whittle its population down to less than 50,000, or jack it up to more than 300,000, we could once again make it into the Top-10.
Maybe former council member Becky Anderson was privy to something when she wanted to make Naperville a “Welcomming” city (code for sanctuary city).
Maybe we forgot to payoff the magazine editor or we severely cut back on the bribes as this is our normal MO in this state and its cities?
Or maybe it is this magazine’s practice of not letting the previous years listees be consider for the current list. This practice will create some rather erratic and dramatic changes from year to year.