Suck it Arlingtonians!

As long asLoose Lips is calling Mayor Adrian Fenty a “Dick” this morning, I might as well as get combative.

Yeah that’s right: Bethesda is one of America’s Most Livable Cities, according to Forbes.com.

Selections were judged on several “quality of life measures:” Five-year income growth per household, cost of living from Moody’s Economy.com, crime data and leisure index from Sperling’s Best Places, and annual unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to the story.

Bethesda ranked number two, bested by Portland Maine. I can vouch for the place since I spent ages four through 14 there: Decent schools, safe, centrally located Metro station. For the youths of the family: Excellent proximity between ice cream shops and soccer practice fields. And for middle-schoolers: Two movie theaters (in the late 1990s, the known hook-up spot was behind United Artists on Wisconsin Ave., but I perhaps that’s changed in a decade.)

A while back, Forbes also took a look at the country’s most miserable cities. It had some explaining to do when it came to certain selections—-for example, Chicago made the list: “Lousy weather, long commutes, rising unemployment and the highest sales tax rate in the country are to blame for the Windy City being near the top of our list,” the article states. “High rates of corruption by public officials didn’t help either.”

Some of the “Most Livable Cities” also seem mildly questionable: Little Rock, Peabody (MA), and Worcester. But Bethesda, I think, deserves a spot.

Image by DCjohn, Flickr Creative Commons