Rating A City's Neighborhoods

Last year, The Kansas City Star ranked the best suburbs in the Kansas City metropolitan area. This year, the newspaper ranked the best city neighborhoods on quality of life, using 34 statistical measures ranging from crime rates and school test scores to block parties and traffic accidents. It also compiled a report card on neighborhood trends that showed, contrary to popular belief in the city, neighborhoods are actually getting better this decade. Across the country, plenty of rankings have come out comparing metropolitan areas, but few have taken such an in-depth look at how urban neighborhoods are performing.