Why Glens Falls?

Preferences on where to live are so individual. What works well for me is not necessarily for everyone; however, since I was not tied down to a job or family connections, I had the rare opportunity of analyzing where I would likely be happiest. Being a computer programmer, analysis is something I love to do. Many factors went into my decision.

I like a place with plenty of recreational opportunities. I like to downhill and cross country ski. I also like to travel. I enjoying vacationing at the ocean, and I have family in the Midwest whom I need to visit. I appreciate the convenience of flying, but I didn't want to be too close to a big, busy airport. I hate flying out of JFK, but an airport the size of Albany is ideal. Affordability was a big factor in my decision. With a young son, good schools were also very important.

I started my search by going to a map at the Great Schools website, zooming out as much as I could while still seeing the number ratings for the school districts, and just flying around over major travel routes. I "flew" back toward the Midwest, checking out areas in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Michigan, and I flew around out here in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey - as far south as Virginia. I read articles on Yahoo and MSN that would catch my eye on the best places to raise a family and run a business.

There were a lot of factors as well as many possibilities to consider, so I made a database to keep track of all the variables. The data from greatschools.net couldn't be compared across state lines without some qualifying, since each state has its own testing system, so I qualified the school ratings by incorporating information from a list of the top ranked high schools across the nation. Whenever I would find a city that interested me, I would enter it into my database with the data on education along with other factors I found at Sperling's Best Places. Air and water quality could be quantified as well as information on health care, the economy, education level of the population, statistics on crime, cost of living, and weather - right down to the number of sunny days. I weighted all these factors according to their importance to me, and added a few more that reflected convenience for me such as proximity to an airport and whether or not the town had a gym with a nursery.

It was an interesting exercise to try to create a program that would tell me where I should live. I was amused to find in the beginning that towns that looked too perfect tended to have no people, being resort towns in the middle of nowhere occupied by a few families that owned everything. I wound up building in a factor to consider vacancy with anything over 14% being suspect, but too little vacancy also being a negative. It was also interesting to see the weather patterns, which also affected air pollution with Buffalo and Rochester having too much snow from the lake effects as well as air pollution blown in from across the lake as well. Crime rates were another factor that helped me to rule out certain areas with many otherwise beautiful cities being too close to dangerous areas.

Despite my abundance of research, it was really visiting here and finding the beautiful downtown, friendly people, and the charming amenities of parks, the new library, the farmer's market, bike trails, and playgrounds that solidified my decision.

All this homework not only highlights the many wonderful qualities of Glens Falls, but also provides us with a framework of what makes our community so valuable and where we need to allocate our resources to protect what we have. Though it's important to keep things affordable and keep taxes under control, we can't cut funding for education, police, public parks, and the beautiful new library. Keeping our population safe, healthy, and well-educated is key to a prosperous, successful, and happy community. As a member of this community, these are the values I strive to uphold, and I will support the businesses and organizations that help these values flourish.