Where do people want to live? Denver, poll shows

When it comes to where people want to live, Denver turns out to be the top of the top, the cream of the crop, the best of the best (and forget all the rest).
Denver beat out San Diego; Seattle; Orlando; San Francisco; Phoenix and Portland as the nation's favorite city, according to a Pew Research Center poll of 2,260 adults released today.
"Denver -- I'm moving there tomorrow!" joked Rich Morin, senior editor for the survey. "The grass is greener in Denver to many Americans, particularly if you live in ... well, I'm not going to name any cities."
Detroit, perhaps?
"Detroit's going through a bad patch," Morin said.
Ninety percent of those surveyed said they wouldn't live in Detroit, which finished dead last behind Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Cleveland among the top 30 metropolitan areas.
The survey was part of a larger project tracking when, where and why people move.
Denver had wide appeal, ranking first among men and women, in the top three for people who made more than $100,000 or less than $30,000, and first or second for folks with college degrees or high school diplomas.
The survey didn't ask people why they'd like to live in Denver. Sort of a no-brainer, Morin said.
"Denver has had the reputation of booming, of being a good place to live, close to God's country," he said. "Denver is hot -- (people might say) I like your football team. Or I like to ski. Or it's not Cleveland."
Democratic-dominated Denver was the first pick of Republicans, independents and those who identified themselves as conservative or moderate. But it was third for Democrats, behind San Diego and San Francisco, and fell to ninth among liberals.
That said, most people wouldn't want to live in any city, especially if they live in one now. Thirty percent would prefer a small town, 25 percent a suburb, 21 percent a rural area and just 23 percent an urban one.
About half of those surveyed want to live some place other their current ZIP code.
E-mail Lisa Ryckman of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colo. at ryckmanl(at)RockyMountainNews.com