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[Kelton]

The Morgan Quitno Press publishes State and City Ranking publications, including a yearly "Most Livable State Award" based on 43 negative and positive factors.  Much of the data relevant to our work here is already on the state data page and has already been brought up regularly on this discussion, but there remains much to be examined.


Note that some factors they rank as negative or positive  may actually be the other way around as far as liberty is concerned.


Here is a ranking of our states from the year 2000, on basis of "State & Local Taxes as a Percent of Personal Income" from this table located at http://www.morganquitno.com/sr00ml43.htm

AK 1 (worse in nation)
ME 5
VT 8
WY 10
ND 13
MT 26
ID 20
DE 30
SD 45
NH 50 (Best in nation)  

[Kelton]

Morgan Quitno just released their 2002 SMARTEST STATE AWARD.  Based on their statement of methodology, it actually seems to be more like a dubious report heavily weighted on how much each state forces its citizens to sponsor those government- indoctrination centers called public schools.

Rankings of our candidate states:

#2 in the nation, Vermont
#3                      Montana
#5                      Maine
#8                      Wyoming
#19                    New Hampshire
#21                    North Dakota
#22                    Idaho
#25                    Alaska
#34                    South Dakota
#43                    Delaware

Delaware does have a number of good private schools, that must be the reason why they fared so well on this score.

         

[Zxcv]

Check this out: one of their "positive" factors is, "Percent of School-Age Population in Public Schools"!

Can't have people trying out alternatives, can we?  

I looked at their 21 factors in this rating, and found that whether or not you agree with Morgan-Quitno that these things are good or bad depends on what you think should be done with schools. If you think they ought to be fixed, you will mostly agree with them. If you think they should be done away with, then some you will agree with (e.g. reading competence), some you will disagree with (e.g. expenditures), and some you don't know what to do with (e.g. class size or dropout rate). Since most of us (I think) want to separate school & state, the upshot is this education rating is pretty worthless for our purposes.

The regular "most livable state" rating has the same problem, but to a lesser extent, so that rating is more usable as is. But it would be interesting (for someone with some energy) to take the factors we don't agree with (e.g. "Per Capita State Art Agencies’ Legislative Appropriations"), move them from the desirable to the undesirable column, recalculate for our 10 states and get a ranking much more usable for us.

[Kelton]

Check this out: one of their "positive" factors is, "Percent of School-Age Population in Public Schools"!

Can't have people trying out alternatives, can we?  

zxcv,
Very good of you to point all of this out, about this Morgan-Quinto excuse for a rating ,  'smartest state' = state with more public education+ a few real and nonsense factors.

I do find it useful to note, however, that Vermont ranked 2^nd in the nation and this ranking is so heavily weighted towards public education.


I whole- heartedly agree that the separation of school and state should be one of our highest priorities.
According to Americans for Tax Reform, only one of our candidate states has "no state requirement for parents to initiate contact with the state" in order to homeschool.

http://www.atr.org/maps/15.html

Sadly, 6 of our candidate states are rated in the highest 'high regulation' category.

[Kelton]

Economic Freedom in America's 50 States
by economists John Byars, Robert McCormick, and Bruce Yandle.

In an article in Liberty Haven online by Lawrence W. Reed, discussing the ramifications of a study Commissioned by the State Policy Network, an association of some three dozen state-based free-market think tanks, entitled Economic Freedom in America's 50 States, states that "states with relatively more economic freedom enjoy higher rates of growth . . . because individuals in those states are allowed to keep more of their income, and thus the marketplace can more efficiently determine the allocation of resources."

The resulting nationwide rankings of our ten candidate states in the first year of the report in 1999:
 
Idaho, #1  
Wyoming #4
South Dakota #5
New Hampshire #6
Delaware #7
North Dakota #21
Montana #26
Vermont #34
Alaska #38
Maine #42

The report is found in its entirety in PDF format at:
 _{[ THE REPORT IN ITS ENTIRETY IS 180 PAGES LONG]}    http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/Adobe%20Files/Economic%20Freedom%20(Clemson).PDF

In the summary of the report, the authors explain that

"We have designed and created indexes of economic freedom for each of the fifty U.S. states. This index is based on more 100 different individual measures of economic freedom, spanning government spending, regulation, welfare, school
choice, taxation, and the judicial system. To a certain extent our index is subjective. We have made decisions based on our own judgement of relevance and importance. Others may disagree. However, our index, when linked with observable economic activity, such as population in-migration and growth in per capita income, performs quite well. That is, where economic freedom is higher, there is more inmovement of population and higher economic growth of income.
We believe that freedom is an important component of a well-functioning, growing, capitalist, private property economic system. Using data from the mid- to late-1990s, we first accumulate data on economic freedom. We have assembled state level data on a wide variety of economic activities. We then lumped these together into five different sectors. From these five sectors we created a number of indexes of economic freedom using the values or ranks of each variable for each state. In the end we deemed one index created from principle components analysis the most appropriate for our use.
This index reveals several distinct regional patterns to freedom. There are pockets of freedom in the mountain west region and in the south. The northeast is overcome by an absence of economic freedom as we measure it. Idaho is at the top and New York at the bottom. The table and map attached summarize the index across the country.

[Kelton]

  Morgan Quitno Press' 8th Annual Safest Metro Area Award
safest/most dangerous metropolitan areas in 2000.
 
Bismark, ND  252/254 safest in the nation.
Bangor, ME 240/254  
Pocatello, ID #232/254
Fargo-Moorhead, ND-MN 231/254
Burlington, VT 225/254
Manchester, NH 216/254
Boise, ID 192/254
Cheyenne, WY 191/254
Sioux Falls, SD 185/254
Casper, WY 138/254
Rapid City, SD 117/254
____________________________________________
Higher crime rate than national average:

Anchorage, AK #70 most dangerous

Baltimore, MD (close to Delaware) is #5 most dangerous.
Notable, too that Upstate- New York took several high scores in 2000, which, by extension, bodes well for Vermont.

The methodology that Morgan Quinto Press used for this survey states that they first used 2000 city and metro area crime rates per 100,000 population, released by the FBI in October 2001 for six basic crime categories — murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft — see methodology .


In Robert Young Pelton's the World's Most Dangerous Places 5th edition , in the chapter on the United States, Mr. Pelton (of Discovery Channel's "Dangerous Places fame) presents a low opinion of the United States in general and cites recent FBI statistics pointing to Anchorage, Alaska being #12th most violent-crime ridden city in the entire U.S. then devotes a paragraph on Anchorage with nothing pleasant to say about Anchorage.

[Zxcv]

I don't think crime is very important. Way down on our list of criteria. No state we are considering will require us to live in a place where crime is intolerable. Anyway, one of my sisters lives in a suburb of Anchorage, and she's never mentioned any problems.

On economic freedom, that is quite important. exitus, this looks like a good solid report we can depend on. Here is one table from it, a measure of freedom in various categories:

There is no obviously correct way to divide the indicators into sectors, but we
choose to group the indicators into five sectors. The first, the fiscal sector, is
composed mainly of taxes. The second, the regulatory sector, is composed of
regulatory legislation and data on mandatory participation programs (schools).
The third, the judicial sector, is composed of indicators of the litigiousness of
the judicial system, and the level of tort reform undertaken by a state. The
fourth, the government size sector, is composed of indicators of the size of
government. The last, the welfare spending sector, is composed of data on
government spending on welfare programs.

Code: [Select]

                                   Govt.      Welfare
   Fiscal      Regulatory Judicial    Size       Spending
   Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank

AK 5.45 26    5.72 14    4.45 15    7.17 46    7.72 48

DE 5.95 37    5.60 9     7.18 43    3.83 6     5.00 18

ID 5.23 20    5.19 5     3.91 9     5.17 21    2.44 1

ME 6.22 41    7.36 49    7.09 41    5.83 28    6.39 40

MT 6.37 44    5.70 12    4.09 13    7.33 48    4.89 15

NH 5.60 29    5.67 11    4.00 10    2.17 1     4.89 17

ND 5.35 21    5.59 8     3.36 4     7.50 49    5.33 25

SD 4.68 14    5.05 1     5.09 23    4.83 15    4.56 9

VT 5.85 35    6.12 30    6.00 30    6.00 34    5.28 23

WY 4.03 5     5.77 19    7.09 42    4.83 14    3.89 5

You can see for example, if we ended up in Wyoming, we'd need to work on the judicial end of things to improve the picture, e.g., tort reform.

Actually, this is really an excellent, really great report for our purposes, because it mirrors some of the considerations we have with weights in our own spreadsheet. Here is some verbiage from the report:

There are two objective methods of weighting the indicators. One is to use a statistical method known as principle components analysis to weight the indicators by the variances in the indicators. Another is to weight the indicators by regression coefficients produced by regression on an instrumental or hedonic variable. This technique has the feature that the regression coefficient of the freedom indicator on the instrumental variable (perhaps growth of per capita disposable income) measures the implicit value assigned to each attribute. We use principle components analysis.

Now why didn't I think of that?  

Jason, you need to look at this report, it is good. Maybe some of the methods might apply to our spreadsheet, if you can figure out what they are saying...

-later-

Oops, I just realized this index is the EFI we already have on our state data page!  

[freedomroad]

Morgan Quitno Press' 8th Annual Safest Metro Area Award
safest/most dangerous metropolitan areas in 2000.
 
Bismark, ND  252/254 safest in the nation.
Bangor, ME 240/254  
Pocatello, ID #232/254
Fargo-Moorhead, ND-MN 231/254
Burlington, VT 225/254
Manchester, NH 216/254
Boise, ID 192/254
Cheyenne, WY 191/254
Sioux Falls, SD 185/254
Casper, WY 138/254
Rapid City, SD 117/254
____________________________________________
Higher crime rate than national average:

Anchorage, AK #70 most dangerous

I really do not think this matters much.  As long as I do not move to Wilmington, DE I will feel much more safe then I currently am.  I spent 13 years in Jackson, TN which is number 18 on the list.  I, of course, lived with my parents in the middle class part of town and was never the victim of a crime.  

I now live in Memphis (#2 on the list) and there is crime in this city.  In fact, it would be hard for me to think of a safe middle class part of Memphis.  All of the middle class parts of the city are dangerous.  However, the middle class parts of the suburbs are all safe, as is the county.  To tell you the truth, even though I am middle class there was a shooting in my a-complex 3 night ago.  As long as the city is not like in the top 10 or so there should be little problem when it comes to the middle class being safe (as long as they always carry a gun).

[freedomroad]

I whole- heartedly agree that the separation of school and state should be one of our highest priorities.
According to Americans for Tax Reform, only one of our candidate states has "no state requirement for parents to initiate contact with the state" in order to homeschool.

http://www.atr.org/maps/15.html

Sadly, 6 of our candidate states are rated in the highest 'high regulation' category.

The HSLDA is a much better source for HS info, IMHO.  The FSP agrees as it uses the HSLDA's map as its source.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

The map shows that ID is best for HS but that MT and WY are also good for HS.  Only VT, ME, and ND are very hard on HSers if you go by the map.  The HSLDA map is right when it comes to TN as I know several people from TN that have HSed or do HS.

[Kelton]

I don't think crime is very important. Way down on our list of criteria. No state we are considering will require us to live in a place where crime is intolerable. . .

Zxcv,
 Not one city in any of our candidate states is even remotely comparable in crime to the car-theft/meth.- lab- capital metro area I call home right now, even Anchorage sounds like a refuge  
Most libertarians agree that a people who can govern themselves are not in need of much government at all, and that most crime is brought about by unjust laws that strip people of the power to govern themselves.  I believe that if there is fertile soil in which our political determination will take root, it will be among a people who already demonstrate a desire to govern themselves and resist the Hegelian methods of the power-seeking statists of agitation and a forcing of capitulation in the face of fear that crime and violence invoke.
 

[Kelton]

Demographics
As of April 2001:

Minorities, population diversity:
AK Amer Ind 16%, Black 4%, Asian 4%, Hisp 3%, Other 1%
DE Black 17%, Hisp 2%, Asian 1%, Other 1%
WY Hisp 6%, Other 2%, Amer Ind 2%, Black 1%, Asian 1%
ID Hisp 5%, Other 3%, Amer Ind 1%, Asian 1%
MT Amer Ind 6%, Hisp 2%, Asian 1%
SD Amer Ind 7%, Hisp 1%
ND Amer Ind 4%, Hisp 1%, Black 1%, Asian 1%
NH Hisp 1%, Asian 1%, Black 1%
VT Hisp 1%, Asian 1%
ME Hisp 1%, Asian 1%


Housing:                                                       Seasoned Citizens:
ME Own 75%, Rent 25%, Homeless <.1%        AK 65 and over 4%; Soc Sec 11%
DE Own 73%, Rent 27%, Homeless <.1%        WY 65 and over 10%; Soc Sec 23%
VT Own 73%, Rent 27%, Homeless <.1%        NH 65 and over 11%; Soc Sec 23%
NH Own 73%, Rent 27%, Homeless <.1%        VT 65 and over 12%; Soc Sec 25%
ID Own 72%, rent 28%, Homeless <.1%          DE 65 and over 12%; Soc Sec 26%
WY Own 71%, Rent 29%, Homeless <.1%        ID 65 and over 12%; Soc Sec 27%
ND Own 70%, Rent 29%, Homeless <.1%        ME 65 and over 13%; Soc Sec 28%
MT Own 70%, Rent 30%, Homeless <.1%        MT 65 and over 13%; Soc Sec 28%
SD Own 69%, Rent 31%, Homeless <.1%        ND 65 and over 14%; Soc Sec 29%
AK Own 59%, Rent 40%, Homeless <.1%        SD 65 and over 15%; Soc Sec 30%

Families:                                                                 % receiving public assistance:
ID Married 62%, Marr/Chdn 32%, Sngl/Chdn 8%             AK Pub Asst 8%
NH Married 60%, Marr/Chdn 30%, Sngl/Chdn 7%            ME Pub Asst 8%
WY Married 60%, Marr/Chdn 31%, Sngl/Chdn 8%            MT Pub Asst 7%
ND Married 59%, Marr/Chdn 30%, Sngl/Chdn 6%            VT Pub Asst 7%
SD Married 59%, Marr/Chdn 29%, Sngl/Chdn 7%            SD Pub Asst 7%
ME Married 58%, Marr/Chdn 28%, Sngl/Chdn 8%            ND Pub Asst 6%
MT Married 58%, Marr/Chdn 28%, Sngl/Chdn 8%            Wy Pub Asst 5%
DE Married 56%, Marr/Chdn 26%, Sngl/Chdn 9%             DE Pub Asst 5%
VT Married 56%, Marr/Chdn 28%, Sngl/Chdn 8%             ID Pub Asst 5%
AK Married 56%, Marr/Chdn 34%, Sngl/Chdn 11%           NH Pub Asst 4%

If anything, all this data shows that Alaska is the most different, demographically from the other states.  

[Kelton]

One thing that has been largely ignored here is polling data.  In an effort to try to find more on that, I came across a marketing book, written by a man who is considered a guru in the business world of interpreting market data, the Demographic Detective, Michael J. Weiss.  The book is called "The Clustered World- how we live, what we buy, and what it means about who we are"written in 2000.

It takes all of that market data compiled by all of those big 'snoopy' companies like Experian and seeks to identify socioeconomic groups around the country based on clusters of data that might identify their preferences.  Not only big companies, but political parties rely heavily on this kind of data to help them tailor their messages.    
I have a wealth of findings so far in helping to characterize our states, I will post as I finish the book.
__________
Book finished, here's my report:
http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1275&start=0

[DanTheTileMan]

Here is some info that relates to the DMV in each state:...
I am still compiling some info on window-tinting laws and vehicle inspection laws, coming soon.

Exitus, You may also want to consider which states do not require a social (in)security number to apply for a license.  Some enlightened patriots do not use one; have never obtained one; or do not get slave surveillance numbers for their children.  

Dan the Man

[Zxcv]

I found another economic freedom index, Economic Freedom of North America (EFNA), by the Frazier Institute:

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=453

It showed DE as ranking #1 in the states, and AK as #50!

I don't know what to think of this index. Its correlation with our other two economic freedom indices is -.60 and -.54! But it does seem to be done by a reputable institution. I can't figure out why it correlates so poorly with our other indices, but it must be measuring something different.

Interestingly, it has trends in this index since 1981. I have added this index to the big spreadsheet, and added another page with the trends graphed out. DE, SD and NH rank pretty well in it.

If anyone else has any idea why it correlates so poorly, and whether we should use it, let us know. I got the impression it does not use property tax in its measure, might have a little to do with it. Unfortunately it would probably take a lot of work to figure out which of our 3 economic freedom indices are the best.

[Kelton]

A study conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation,
 GOOD SCIENCE, BAD SCIENCE:TEACHING EVOLUTION IN THE STATES