We're Number Four! We're Number Four!

Although we just missed the podium (no doubt because of Tom Delay and his Sugar Land cronies), Howard County’s nebulous population center, apparently known as Columbia/Ellicott City, ranked fourth in Money Magazine’s list of Best Places to Live.

This is surely good news for tourism, economic development and real estate groups. For the rest of us, it’s not really news. After all, we live here.

Of course, just because objective, outside verification that We’re Awesome isn’t “news,” it doesn’t mean the praise is unwelcome. Sometimes it’s fun to bask in your awesomeness, especially when it comes at the expense of places like Rockville, which at number 26 is the next closest Maryland town on the list (take that, Dad!).

Of course, it’s also fun to know what others see as our most flattering attributes. Here, in its shameless entirety, is Money’s blurb about Our Town(s):

In 1772, the Ellicott brothers began turning a tobacco-country outpost into what would become the new country's largest flour-milling center. Almost 200 years later and not five miles down the road, legendary developer Jim Rouse began to develop Columbia as an improved alternative to cookie-cutter suburbs. Today the 160,000 residents of the neighboring communities reap the benefits of the old and new visions: Ellicott City has grand homes and a charming downtown. Columbia has park space totaling more than a third of the community's 14,000 acres, a wide selection of townhouses apartments, and a mall that's got everything.

Because the cities aren't incorporated, they share in the bounty provided by Howard County. Kids are schooled in Maryland's top-performing district, where they continually score up to 50% above average on state tests. There's a major music venue, the Merriweather Post Pavilion, in Columbia, and the county runs a 30,000-square foot arts center as well as a center for African-American culture, both located in Columbia.

There are ample employment options for residents: About a third of them work within the county at companies such as Verizon and the Johns Hopkins-affiliated Howard County General Hospital, while the remainder commute to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. "These communities offer pretty much everything you need to create quality of life," says Marion Berman, 55, who opened her art gallery at the Mall in Columbia in 1981. When it came time to expand, she moved Gallery 44 to Ellicott City. "It's a great place to work, and an even better place to live."

Columbia, one of the most racially diverse cities on our list, is 20% African American and 10% Asian. Alma Gill, 42, says she and her husband chose to move here 10 years ago, even though their old home in Alexandria, Va. was closer to her job at USA Today. "We wanted our son to grow up in an area where there are people from everywhere," Gill says, "in a place that is accepting of everyone."

Now, not to sound like a one-trick pony or anything, but how about the mention of Merriweather, huh? Music to my ears. Of course, highlighting our schools, open space, jobs and diversity isn’t bad, either.

Here’s a link to Money’s data snapshot of Columbia/Ellicott City, a nice little feature that gives you all the relevant demographic data for your city and the “Best Places” averages, which we beat for almost everything (I particularly like the Public/Private school breakdown).

The one place, it seems, where we fare less well is median commute time – ours is almost six minutes longer than the Best Places average. Considering that the whole Baltimore/DC area is characterized by lengthy commutes, this statistic isn’t particularly noteworthy. But, still, it got me thinking.

Does anyone actually value their commute? That is, do you enjoy living a half hour or more away from work? Is the daily travel enjoyable or useful? Do you seek a clear spatial separation between work and home?

Or is a longer commute simply an additional “cost of living” you are willing to bear in order to call Columbia/Ellicott City home? To be sure, much of what makes our community desirable also makes it unique, but we’re not so different that one couldn’t similar neighborhoods closer to their work (I think).

I’m not asking these questions to be flippant. I’m honestly interested in how people decide where to live and where to work.

For me, the decision of where to work was based significantly on proximity to Columbia, where I knew I wanted to live. As such, after finishing graduate school I didn’t even consider working in DC, home to more jobs in my field – public policy – than any other place on earth.

(Although I made it through this entire post without rehashing the Columbia vs. Ellicott City debate, I would be remiss if I didn't say, on behalf of all Columbians, "you're welcome" to our northern neighbors for doing all the heavy lifting in this contest.)