This dataset is taken from the Places Rated Almanac, by Richard Boyer and David Savageau, copyrighted and published by Rand McNally. This book order (SBN) number is 0-528-88008-X, and it retails for $14.95 . The data are reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, and with the request that the copyright notice of Rand McNally, and the names of the authors appear in any paper or presentation using these data.

The nine rating criteria used by Places Rated Almanac are:

Climate & Terrain

Housing

Health Care & Environment

Crime

Transportation

Education

The Arts

Recreation

Economics

For all but two of the above criteria, the higher the score, the better. For Housing and Crime, the lower the score the better.

The scores are computed using the following component statistics for each criterion (see the Places Rated Almanac for details):

Variable	Abbreviation	Description
Climate & Terrain	Clim&Terr	very hot and very cold months, seasonal temperature variation, heating- and cooling-degree days, freezing days, zero-degree days, ninety-degree days.
Housing	Housing	utility bills, property taxes, mortgage payments.
Health Care & Environment	Health&Env	per capita physicians, teaching hospitals, medical schools, cardiac rehabilitation centers, comprehensive cancer treatment centers, hospices, insurance/hospitalization costs index, flouridation of drinking water, air pollution.
Crime	Crime	violent crime rate, property crime rate.
Transportation	Transp	daily commute, public transportation, Interstate highways, air service, passenger rail service.
Education	Educ	pupil/teacher ratio in the public K-12 system, effort index in K-12, academic options in higher education.
The Arts	Arts	museums, fine arts and public radio stations, public television stations, universities offering a degree or degrees in the arts, symphony orchestras, theatres, opera companies, dance companies, public libraries.
Recreation	Recreat	good restaurants, public golf courses, certified lanes for tenpin bowling, movie theatres, zoos, aquariums, family theme parks, sanctioned automobile race tracks, pari-mutuel betting attractions, major- and minor- league professional sports teams, NCAA Division I football and basketball teams, miles of ocean or Great Lakes coastline, inland water, national forests, national parks, or national wildlife refuges, Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area access.
Economics	Econ	average household income adjusted for taxes and living costs, income growth, job growth.