Most Livable State

Morgan Quitno Press recently released its "Most Livable State" rankings. Winner, for the fourth year in a row, is our next door neighbor New Hampshire. Maine ranked 16th which is in line with where we have generally fallen in the ranking. The scale is numerically based 1 (worst) to 50 (best). Maine's score of 28.27 is 18.4 percent below New Hampshire's score of 34.66. That is quite a difference given the demographic and cultural similarities of the two states. That pretty much leaves policy variables as the obvious source of the difference. Unfortunately, the full report is not available on-line and must be purchased. However, here is the list of the 44 variables.