Midwest Quality of Life Rankings Have Muskego in Top 20 Percent

According to the Business Journal, On Numbers has analyzed 955 Midwestern communities, searching for the places offering the most favorable living conditions. Muskego ranked 182 on the list, placing it in the top 20 percent, based on quality of life variables.

Wisconsin's top-rated community – Whitefish Bay – ranked 20th in the Midwest, followed immediately by Mequon at 21st. Of course, suburban communities dominate the top of the ratings. Madison is the highest-rated large Wisconsin city, ranking 265th in the Midwest.

Nearby, Brookfield was 64th, and New Berlin ranked 171st.

The city of Milwaukee ranked poorly at 868th in the Midwest. the only other Wisconsin community to rank worse was Whitewater, at 917th.

On Numbers used a 20-part formula to find Midwestern communities that enjoy healthy economies, light traffic, moderate costs of living, impressive housing stocks and strong educational systems. Muskego was part of 955 cities, towns, villages, census designated places (CDPs) and other municipalities that had populations of 10,000 or more as of 2009. Raw data came from a five-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey.

A few points of interest:

• A little over 90 percent of us have lived in our homes for at least one year; only 1.2 percent have moved into the area from another state or abroad in the past year
• Nearly 96 percent of us have a high school diploma, but far fewer have a bachelor's degree (34 percent) or post graduate degree (10 percent)
• While 38 percent of the homes in the city were built since 1990, nearly as many (34 percent) are vacant
• Unemployment for those aged 25-64 was 3.26 percent