Cary, NC – Break out the champagne: Cary has once again made it into Money Magazine’s Top 25 Places to Live.

How They Did It

Money Mag crunched data on 746 small cities across the U.S. with populations between 50,000 and 300,000.

They screened out retirement communities, towns with significant job loss, and those with poor education and crime scores. Money ranked remaining places based on housing affordability, school quality, arts and leisure, safety, health care, diversity, and several ease-of-living criteria.

That cut the list by more than half. Then they factored in additional data on the economy (including fiscal strength of the government), jobs, housing, and schools. Economic factors were weighted most heavily.

Finally, Money visited 30 towns and interviewed residents, assessing traffic, parks, and gathering places and considering intangibles like community spirit.

A Bit of Analysis

Cary weighed in at #23. Eden Prairie, MN topped the list. No other North Carolina cities made the Top 25 (Chapel Hill came next at #40).

Minnesota had the most cities on the list with 5. Texas had 4 cities on the list and Colorado 3. In case anyone was asking, New Jersey had no cities in the Top 25.  Franklin, NJ weighed in at 34, followed by Piscataway (57)  and Wayne (73).

While lots of data fueled the study, it’s not exactly science. Nonetheless, it’s nice to hear that others think we have a solid community.

“Recognition is due to our residents, our Town staff and our partners–the Cary Chamber and our neighboring municipalities–who all work together to make great things happen in our area,” said Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht. “Moving forward, we want to make sure we continue to do those things necessary to make us worthy of this sort of recognition, and above all, keep Cary the kind of place our citizens want it to be.”

Congratulations to the Town staff and administration, all our local businesses, volunteers and participants in the life of our vibrant town.

Maybe next year, we’ll give Eden Prairie a run for their money.

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Cary, NC – Most lots in Cary have underground utilities including telephone, electricity, and TV Cable. We tend to forget that the utility companies have the right to work within those easements for maintenance and upgrades. And AT&T is expanding their UVerse fiber system through Cary.

In my neighborhood, Giverny, that means checking all the splices in existing cable and upgrading and improving those connections as needed. AT&T contractors are excavating in the utility easement as needed to access the cables for those upgrades.

It means that there will be plantings removed, and some nice shrubs lost. I see it as an opportunity at our house. The area near the cable pedestal has never been fertile, and I have lost a lot of plantings there. Healthy shrubs turn black and die within weeks. And it is always to hard to dig out. But when the backhoe gets here, I will haul away all the loose dirt I can and replace it with something else.

It will cost me a cottoneaster that has been a survivor. And I am worried about my peony, which finally this year showed what a happy peony can do.

But mostly I am worried about the neighbor’s crape myrtle. It is one of the few in the neighborhood that has not been “crape murdered,” i.e., hacked to shreds, and it has a beautiful natural shape. I hope the utility contractors can leave it unscathed.

But this fellow down the street lost a beautiful stand of wax myrtles:

They stood about 12 feet tall, right at the corner. And he maintained them carefully, pruning them so they grew very dense.

They were right on top of a splice the contractors needed to access:

Score: Cable 1, Wax Myrtle 0

And we get competition in TV and internet access offerings.

This is all legitimate. The easement is commonly the first 10 feet from the curb on most Cary lots. And the contractors are not responsible for plantings that are placed there. When I took those photos, the supervisor asked me, “What are you taking photos of?” I replied, “Shooting for a blog on the risks of planting in the utility easement.”

He liked it. They get chewed out sometimes by people who do not realize they shouldn’t plant valuable plants in the easement.