Fla. city named top place for family

Pembroke Pines ranks high in ‘Best Place to Raise a Family’ report

Pembroke Pines residents may already know this, but the suburb was named as a top place to raise a family in Florida.

The Broward city of 170,000 residents came in No. 33 in a new study by financial website WalletHub in its “Best & Worst Places to Raise a Family” report. Pembroke Pines was the highest ranking city in the state.

In March, the municipality was also named as the happiest place in South Florida by Wallet Hub. (Where else will you find officers smiling and posing with a cute piglet as they searched for its owners?)

For the new study, researchers focused on 47 key metrics among five categories such as cost of housing, health systems, education and child care and amenities for fun and recreation.

Pembroke Pines also represented well in the education/child care group where it was No. 13.

“This study aims to reveal the areas that offer the greatest opportunity to achieve Wallet Fitness and live a long and happy life,’’ according to WalletHub’s new report.

Other South Florida cities didn’t fare well in best/worst places for families survey. Miami and and Fort Lauderdale ranked almost last.

The Magic City was No. 172 while Fort Lauderdale came in No. 167 from the list of 182 cities nationwide. Hialeah popped in at No. 175.

Contributing to South Florida’s bad showing was (no surprise) the affordability factor. In that category, Fort Lauderdale was No. 162, Hialeah came in No. 181 while Miami was last.

The top places in the country to raise a family were: Overland Park, Kansas; Fremont, California; Irvine, California; Plano, Texas; and South Burlington, Vermont.

Elsewhere in Florida, Tampa was ranked at No. 55 and Orlando came in at No. 70.