Chris Schillig: Where in the world is ... ?

The ideal place for me to live is Hilo, Hawaii.

This is not random musing. No, it’s science, baby! Or maybe pseudo-science. OK, maybe just a silly online quiz.

But said quiz has a better pedigree than many. For one thing, it doesn’t seem to be fishing — or is that phishing? — for personal data. By contrast, some Facebook “quizzes” ask you to input your age and birthday in exchange for learning what movie star you resemble or which cartoon character shares your personality. Those are sketchy, especially when my matinee match is Paul Reubens as PeeWee Herman and my cartoon caricature is Homer Simpson.

But I digress. This particular quiz, called “Where Should You Live?,” is from The New York Times, You can Google it if it isn’t behind a paywall, if you’re confident that brushing up against a liberal publication won’t turn you blue forever, and if my publisher is copacetic with a plug for a news rival.

Click a few preferences to get started. Click some preferences twice to indicate their importance.

For me, double-clicks were “commute” (as in, a short one) and “health care” (I’m not getting any younger). Single clicks went to “schools,” “air quality,” and “less snow,” among others. (Hey, I’m not revealing all my secrets.)

If I limit the results to the Northeast, I say aloha to Hawaii and hello to Arlington, New York, population 3,674.

(I just learned “aloha” means both hello and goodbye in Hawaiian, so it makes sense for a Hawaiian city to be my top match, as I seldom know if I’m coming or going.)

If I limit results again to the Midwest, then I’m bound for Peoria, Illinois, with a much larger population of 113,532.

So from Hawaii to New York to Illinois. Talk about around the world in a daze.

For kicks, I searched for my current location — Alliance, Ohio — on the quiz’s database. It was only a 50 percent match for me, compared to Hilo’s 88 percent. Alliance’s attributes include “affordability” and average price per square foot for home ownership ($76).

“Summer in Alliance is hot,” the site says. “Winter is cold and very snowy.” Accurate, if unappealing.

The Carnation City also ranks 7/10 for commute, 9/10 for health care, and 10/10 for air quality.

Less inviting are availability of live music, 4/10; income mobility, 3/10; low crime, 3/10; and jobs, 2/10. I was surprised that Alliance only earned a 5/10 for trees, especially since it has been designated as a Tree City for the last 39 years, according to the Arbor Day Foundation’s website. I was not surprised by its mountain rating, a 0/10. Flat to a fault.

This is the point where the columnist leaps to an obligatory defense of his adopted hometown, if “adopted” is the right descriptor for a place I’ve lived the majority of my life, yet managed through an accident of geography to avoid being born in.

Alliance, like all places, has its strengths and weaknesses. It is also greater than the sum of its parts. These expressions are also obligatory (and cliche), but that doesn’t make them less heartfelt.

My wife and I have pondered on occasion a move away from northeast Ohio — but never, it must be said, to Hilo, Hawaii. What keeps us here is largely entropy, to be sure, but also family, fulfilling careers and a fondness for the people and the area.

I mean, where else can you be mowing the grass in shorts one weekend and then salting down ice sheets in your driveway the next?

And what other city has Polinori’s? Worth a trip if you haven’t been. Worth a trip if you have.

Besides, who puts much stock in an online quiz, anyway?

Not even editors for The New York Times, who admit their quiz is “absolutely” biased and that if you check enough boxes, “you’ll start to match with more and more places in California, the country’s most populous state.”

No thanks. Maybe I’m the biased one, but I’ll stick with Alliance.

Reach Chris chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Chris Schillig: Where in the world is ... ?