by Chris Munzing
Long Beach was named the nation's second-best place to live by Relocate-America's "America's Top 100 Places to Live" poll.
"It just shows that people realize that the City of Long Beach is a very desirable place to be," said City Council President Jim Hennessy.
Relocate-America is a real estate agent-driven Web site that specializes in assisting people looking to relocate find communities that best fit their family's needs. To make the list, a city must be nominated by a past or current resident, accompanied by a brief description of the community.
According to Relocate-America, communities often include descriptions of great people and neighbors, peace and quiet, the overall beauty of the area, a good school system, low crime rates, an abundance of cultural activities and sports, economic health and affordable housing.
" It gives communities a sense of pride and accomplishment when making the list," said Steve Nickerson, CEO and President of HomeRoute, Relocate-America's umbrella company, in a statement.
The company gave no indication who had filed the original nomination.
Nominated towns are then put through a process where they are compared against each other in crime rates, employment statistics, housing and economic data from the past year, as well as the intangibles that make a place special.
Many of the top 100 were cities that are experiencing tremendous growth. The top-rated city, Spencer, Iowa, is building a new middle school, adding on to its high school, and adding a $21 million surgery center to its hospital.
Real estate agent Dan Ryan of Ryan & Walis said projects like the Atlantic Hotel, several new condominium complexes being built on Broadway, and the upcoming Superblock project put Long Beach in the same category as Spencer. "We're finally getting our hotel," Ryan said, referring to the Superblock. "There's just a lot of good things happening in Long Beach right now."
"The ocean and the beaches are the nicest you'll find anywhere," Ryan said. "I've been to California, and there's no comparison."
Real estate agent Nicole Leven of Remax Sea City Realty said that Long Beach offers everything a person could ask for. "It's a sort of 'live where you play' environment," she said. "It's everything you get from New York City but with a great beach. You walk out your door and you can walk to the stores, walk to the restaurants, walk right to the beach. It's a just a great place to live.
"People don't want to live too far out in the suburbs," Ryan said. "We're just a quick train ride from New York. This offers the best of both worlds."
