More than eight decades ago a study was done to determine what makes a city a worthwhile place for people to live.  It probably wasn’t the first study and it sure hasn’t been the last.

The same factors that make a city a good place to live make a state a good place to live.  In our political discussions, however, contemporary talk seems to focus on one element that diminishes the importance of other factors and, in fact, makes some other factors harder to achieve.  But the other factors often don’t manipulate political emotions as effectively as the one that year after year gets the greatest attention.

The Jefferson City Post-Tribune ran an editorial on December 17, 1937 about the survey on the qualities of good cities.  Then, as now, the politically popular supposed solution to all problems was not a factor in determining what makes a livable city.   Here’s the editorial that could be as applicable today as it was then.

More than three hundred cities of our United States recently were investigated by a group of researchers from an eastern college to learn the difference between a city where people live and where they merely exist or serve time until the job runs out.

They found among other things that the character of the cities’ inhabitants more than economic advantages make for civic goodness. 

In studying a given city, the university investigators asked questions like these:

What are the general and infant death rates?  How much money, per capita, is spent on libraries, on education, on recreation? How common is extreme poverty?  What percentage of the people own their own homes?  What percentage own automobiles? How many doctors, nurses, and teachers are there in proportion to the population?  What are the per capita expenditures for highways, for light, for sanitation, for police, fire and health departments?  What is the homicide rate?  How much unemployment was there in the census year 1930?  What is the average income of the citizens?

Answer all those questions—and a lot more along similar lines—and you get a pretty fair picture of a city.  Furthermore, you get a picture which is not necessarily the same as the one you would get simply by adding up the city’s tangible, visible assets—its transportation facilities, its industries, its natural resources and so on.

In other words the man who works for decent municipal playgrounds is doing as much for a city as the man who goes out and gets a factory. One is essential to the well-being of the community and the other to its prosperity in dollars and cents. A first rate mayor, chief of police or street commissioner can be a civic asset of incalculable value. And so, of course, can a first rate Chamber of Commerce, civic club, women’s organization, that has the general welfare at heart.

A city is a place to live as well as work and it is what we do to make the idle 16 hours pleasant and worthwhile that goes a long way to measuring the worth of the community.

We thought it interesting that the editorial’s list of questions asked “How much money, per capita, is spent on…?”   But our state policy makers so often find themselves saying, “There isn’t enough money for….” as they discuss the newest proposal to have even less.

A state is a place to live as well as to work and it is what we do to make the idle 16 hours pleasant and worthwhile that goes a long way to measuring the worth of a state. Unfortunately there aren’t many lobbyists or major campaign donors who have “the general welfare at heart.”

There is a difference between a state where people live and where they merely exist or serve until the job runs out.

Which way are we headed?