From the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
The natural amenities scale is a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live. The scale was constructed by combining six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer. These measures are warm winter, winter sun, temperate summer, low summer humidity, topographic variation, and water area. The data are available for counties in the lower 48 States.
So, the coast of California, the Sierra Nevada, and the highlands of Colorado are the best counties in the 48 states in terms of natural amenities. That would seem to accord with the views of rich guys.
I’ve been to Cochise County, AZ, another one of America’s superstar counties, along with Gila, AZ (which I don’t recall visiting). They are way far south so have mild winters, but they are at fairly high altitudes so aren’t very hot or humid in summer.
The worst counties on this scale are in the upper Midwest.
In the middle of the country, especially blessed counties are in the highlands near the border of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and in northwest Arkansas, where Sam Walton chose to found Walmart over 60 years ago.
I would think that a few more measures would round off this scale: tree cover, average height of trees, and number of mosquitos. This map is biased toward boring southwest desert, such as the empty plains of West Texas, because due to higher altitude they aren’t that hot in summer and have lots of sunshine in winter. But people like trees, which West Texas is short of.
Similarly, this map is biased toward lower latitudes, which, all else being equal, tend to have a lot of mosquitos for more months of the year.
Thus, while the southeast deserves credit for its many tall trees, it also has a lot of mosquitos.
