Stay cool, Blue Valley!
Today’s forecast: Mostly sunny with scorching heat. High: 103. Low: 77. A heat advisory remains in effect.
One thing to know today
Overland Park and Olathe are among the best 100 mid-size cities in the U.S. in which to live.
That’s according to new rankings put out by Livability.com, which focuses its annual list of cities that have between 75,000 and 500,000 residents.
The list’s makers say they’re looking for the “best places to live that leave you with money left over after paying your rent or mortgage.”
On this year’s list, Overland Park’s score ranked it seventh overall, while Olathe came in 15th.
Livability.com credited Overland Park with having a “combination of safe neighborhoods, nationally-ranked schools, and strong health care and wellness options” for its high score, along with quality youth sports venues and a “growing brewery scene.”
For Olathe, Livability.com nodded to the city’s history as a stop on the Santa Fe Trail while also spotlighting is growing entrepreneurial scene, buttressed by the GrowOlathe economic development program.
“Olathe has bragging rights to a highly educated workforce (about 50.2% of Olathe citizens have a college degree), a stellar public school system and a hospital [Olathe Medical Center] that continually gets accolades,” Livability.com’s summary read.
The list was engineered using nearly 100 data points that measured cities based on factors like cost of living, the local economy, schools, transportation, safety and health.
Check out the full list and the full methodology here.
Public meetings Thursday
- Board of County Commissioners, 9:30 a.m. [View agenda]
Post’s top Wednesday stories
- Overland Park T-bone crash leaves 17-year-old hospitalized
- This Blue Valley elementary student is one of the state’s best Chinese speakers
- Leawood is adding cardiac SaveStations to major city parks
- KU Cancer Center gets $143M for new research and care facility
- Overland Park sculpture will honor late artist’s legacy of ‘growing kindness’
Other local news
- Former BV baseball standout beats Royals. One-time Blue Valley High School baseball star Will Brennan delivered the game-winning double Tuesday night against his hometown Royals in a 2-1 Cleveland Guardians victory. [KSHB]
- Christian Braun made an appearance at OP basketball camp. Blue Valley Northwest and KU alum Christian Braun, a newly minted NBA champion with the Denver Nuggets, helped out aspiring basketball players at an annual summer basketball camp hosted by Braun’s former Huskies coach Ed Fritz. [KUSports.com]
- Westlake Ace Hardware adds store in Olathe. The Lenexa-based company announced plans to open a new 16,000-square-foot store in western Olathe with a target completion date this fall. [HBSDealer]
A thousand words
Who knew summer school could be so sweet? Here’s a sugary scene from the final week of the Blue Valley School District’s Summer Explorations program. Photo via Instagram.
