For livability stake a claim in Minnesota's land of lakes. When it comes to your health, Vermont is as sweet as its maple syrup. For safety, the Peace Garden State of North Dakota is the place you ought to be.

Morgan Quitno Press, the Lawrence KS researcher and publisher of stats about the various states of the states and their cities, on May 9, released the latest "Most Livable States", "Healthiest States", "Safest and Most Dangerous States".

For a record sixth year in a row, the North Star State of Minnesota is the nation's Most Livable State in Morgan's 12 annual presentation. After Minnesota, Iowa, New Hampshire (moving up from No. 13 a year ago), Virginia and Massachusetts rounded out the top five most livable states.

Mississippi barely beat out Louisiana as the least livable state for the fourth consecutive year. They were followed by Alabama, Arkansas and New Mexico at the bottom of the livability scale.

To determine a state's "Livability Rating," Morgan Quitno averages the 1 to 50 score of 43 factors for each state, including everything from crime rates, costs of living, incomes and home ownership rates to low birth weight births, per capita number of books in libraries, sunny days and hazardous waste sites.

"Our award is nothing if not consistent, but Minnesota seems to have what it takes to keep the other 49 states at bay,"said Scott Morgan, president of the press.

"The state performs consistently well in many areas...a low teen birth rate, a high home ownership rate, a very good high school graduation rate and high spending for the arts. The only category that Minnesota ranks poorly in is average daily mean temperature," Morgan said.

Healthy states

With a nickname that sounds healthy -- the Green Mountain State -- Vermont is back at the top of the heap of healthy states for the second year in a row. Minnesota, best overall state for livability was second followed by Iowa, New Hampshire and Nebraska. Least healthy states were last place Mississippi, also the least livable state, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama and Nevada.

The healthy living award is based on an analysis of 21 factors, including access to health care providers, affordability of health care, infant mortality rates, teen birth rate, binge drinking rates and sexually transmitted disease rates.

Safest, most dangerous states

Morgan Quitno named North Dakota, with the nation's lowest murder, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary rates, as the safest state, followed by Maine, Vermont, South Dakota and Idaho.

Exceeding national crime rates in every category, Louisiana was named the most dangerous state.

"The state's murder rate, which was the highest in the country, was more than double the national average," said Morgan.

Florida, New Mexico (last year’s most dangerous state), Maryland and Arizona, followed Louisiana as the most dangerous states.

Published: May 10, 2002

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.