Pittsburgh is the top place in Pennsylvania to bring up children, a ranking in Business Week magazine concludes.
The magazine's second "Best Places to Raise Your Kids" list weighs school performance, affordability and safety as the main criteria, followed by job growth, air quality, ethnic diversity and attractions such as parks, museums and theaters.
"There are so many amenities in Pittsburgh that their work is all about kids and families," Bill Schlageter, marketing director at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, said Tuesday.
The North Side museum, along with the National Aviary and Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, for example, "strive to bring families to them and offer a unique experience for families. That's not necessarily a common practice," he said.
Business Week writer Prashant Gopal noted Pittsburgh's transition from a steel town that experienced hard times before expanding into technology, health care, financial services and other industries. "It is kind of coming into its own with a strong economy, and the schools are good for a medium-size city," Gopal said.
No Pennsylvania towns made the magazine's initial list, a more general ranking of small towns. Nebraska, Illinois and Ohio dominated the rankings. This year, Gopal said, Business Week decided to look at larger places, and to pick a top town in each state.
Excluded were towns with fewer than 50,000 residents, and those with median family incomes under $40,000 or more than $100,000. Pittsburgh's population is 311,818, and its median family income is $47,658, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The magazine chose Mount Prospect, Ill., a Chicago suburb, as No. 1 "best place." There were no other rankings, though Pittsburgh finished in the top 25 percent nationwide, Gopal said. Scranton and Levittown were runners-up in Pennsylvania.
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