Northwood News ♦ October 2015

Four Corners Rated #1 Place to Live in Maryland

By Jacquie Bokow

The website RoadSnacks.net, based in Durham, N.C., aims “to deliver infotainment about where you live that your real estate agent won’t tell you,” using “data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country.”  Using crime statistics, government census information, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Sperling’s Best Places (a website that offers information about cities and zip codes in the U.S. including climate, economy, population, demographics, education, cost of living, and employment), RoadSnacks analyzed 191 Maryland cities.

Their resulting data chart showed the worst place to live in Maryland is Elkton.

“It wasn’t even close,” the report says. “When you’re looking at the worst places you could live in Maryland, Elkton takes the cake.  In Elkton, crime is the sixth highest in the state, and one out of 16 residents was robbed here according to the latest FBI numbers, which came out in 2013.”  RoadSnacks also cited Elkton’s low public school budget and low median income.

The best place?  Our own Four Corners topped that list.

Here’s the Top 10 list of worst places:

1. Elkton
2. Salisbury
3. Cumberland
4. Hagerstown
5. Cambridge
6. Lansdowne
7. Robinwood
8. Cockeysville
9. Middle River
10. Essex

Baltimore came in as the 37th worst place.

Seven of the top 10 best spots are Montgomery County towns:

1. Four Corners
2. North Potomac
3. Layhill
4. South Kensington
5. Ilchester*
6. Hillandale
7. North Laurel*
8. Ellicott City*
9. Colesville
10. Olney

*Not in Montgomery County.

11th was Kemp Mill.

The criteria RoadSnacks used was:

1. Population Density (“the lower the worse, meaning there’s nothing to do for inside fun”);
2. Highest Unemployment Rates;
3. Adjusted Median Income (median income adjusted for the cost of living);
4. High Housing Vacancy Rate;
5. Education (low expenditures per student and high student-teacher ratio); and
6. High Crime.

RoadSnacks claims they want to show “the real side of places that not everyone wants to hear.”  But their report also includes a disclaimer that “this article is an opinion based on data” and “should not be taken as fact.”   ■

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