best places to bring up a family

What Do Parents Care About?

Reader's Digest asked parents to rate 12 features of a good place to bring up a family. Here, on average, is how parents rated them on a scale of 1–10:

 1  Good state schools   8.4
 2  Low crime rate   8.4
 3  Good local hospitals   7.7
 4  Affordable family housing   7.7
 5  High employment   7.2
 6  Low risk of flooding   6.8
 7  Lots of families live there   6.4
 8  Local universities/colleges  6.0
 9  Under an hour to a major city   5.7
 10  Warm, dry weather   5.1
 11  Under an hour to the coast   4.9
 12  Under an hour to a National Park  4.8

Mean average of a “1–10” rating by parents, 10 being "extremely important”.

YouGov conducted an online survey among 1,162 parents with children under 16 between February 12 and 15, 2007.

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