Many an American will gladly argue deep into the night that his home town is the cleanest, liveliest, fastest-growing or simply just the best place to live. The talk is part of the national pastime of comparing anything from batting averages to the busts of beauty contestants. Now along comes the Midwest Research Institute, a Kansas City, Mo., think tank with an avalanche of facts, figures and judgments. Funded by a grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, MRI set out last year to measure the "quality of life" in the U.S.'s 243...
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