A benign list sparked a familiar feud.

I posted on our parenting blog a story by Parenting Magazine that rated the best cities in America to raise a family. It ranked St. Louis No. 11, a fair ranking for our fair city, I suggested. Within minutes, the city-county divide erupted online. A typical county-dweller's comment: "Really, I mean, come on. Who in their right mind would want to raise a child where a murder happens every 6 hours and 40% of the children raised in the city are either dead or in prison by age 25?" A same-spirited rebuttal from the city: "If you don't like the city, stay out there where you live! That's what I do. ... There is nothing in the county that would make me waste my gas to go see!!!!"

The region's polarized debate on urban versus suburban versus rural obscures the real issue: What makes a place great for a child to grow up?

The Parenting survey considered the nation's 100 largest cities based on Census data. Then, it factored in dozens of other statistics to try to measure four main areas: health, as indicated by things such as air quality, hospitals and park land; education, as assessed by state data and test scores; community, which factored in cost-of-living, commute and crime rates; and charm and culture, taking into account museums, farmer markets and historical monuments.

Each sub-index was weighted equally. So, how did the city of St. Louis fare so well?

"You got a very high charm and culture rating," said Stephanie Wood, executive editor of the magazine. Most reasonable people can agree the city has loads of charm and also agree that some of the other categories need serious work.

For a different perspective, Business Week calculates its own "best place to raise your kids" list and came up with Farmington, population about 16,000, at the top of its Missouri rankings. Affordability, crime and school test scores factored into its ranking of communities within certain population and income parameters.

So, is a child in the city of St. Louis or in the town of Farmington getting the better childhood? What makes a place great for the child?

I asked adults who grew up in a diverse range of places, from big cities to homogeneous suburbs to isolated farms, what they liked about their hometowns. The answers had a few common themes: Freedom to explore and play, access to friends and neighbors who felt like family. Even the ones who couldn't wait to escape stifling small towns said they didn't realize what they were missing until they were old enough to realize the world is bigger than their backyards.

I was raised in a wooded suburb of Houston with miles of winding trails, neighborhood parks and competitive schools. I remember riding bikes up and down our block, walking to the pool with cousins and picking wild blackberries growing on the other side of the fence. By high school, having nothing to do and nowhere to go was a common lament. But, any place where a child is loved and provided for, has friends and safe places to play and learn is a great place to grow up. To the child, it doesn't matter how many parks a town has. What matters is how often someone takes them to the park.

Many of our children have less freedom than we did. They get less time outdoors and less unstructured play.

Yet, I'll bet a middle-class kid in Farmington is just as likely to report a great childhood as a middle-class kid in the city. It's the ones on the margins in either community whose childhoods are at risk. Places where there are no jobs, no opportunities and no sense of security wreck families. Parents who consult glossy magazines to see how communities score against one another need not worry about meaningless rankings.

Bickering over the cultural superiority of the city versus the superior public education in parts of the county is a waste of time. What matters is elevating the region so all of our children have opportunities at successful lives and memories of happy childhoods.

When we were house-hunting, I wanted good public schools and neighborhood streets lined with trees. We considered commutes and closet space and ended up in the suburbs to raise our own family. When I asked my 8-year-old daughter if she thought our town was a good place to grow up, she immediately said yes.

"What do you like about it?" I asked. She rattled off a list that would make the city's convention bureau blush.

"The Arch, Ted Drewes, toasted ravioli, Busch Stadium — all of it," she said.

Charming — even from a distance.