COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

Self-image is important. Freud explained all that. How you see yourself affects how people see you. I see myself as really good looking and in great shape, which is why I can make people laugh really hard when they see me. If you were a city, which not many people are, I would think your self-image would be rock solid if you were the City of Newport Beach.

But the Newport Beach City Council wants to make sure. They’ve commissioned a poll to find out exactly how residents and businesses in the city think they’re doing. They want to see how they match up against cities like Bellevue, Wash., Coral Springs, Fla. and Fishers, Ind.

Why those cities? Because each was ranked at or near the top of one of the “Best Cities” lists compiled by Money Magazine, Forbes, CNN Money and the like. There are hundreds of “Top 10” and “Top 100 Cities” lists done every year — “Best Cities to Live and Work”; “Best Cities to Work and Live”; “Best Cities to Raise Children”; “Best Cities Not to Raise Children”; “Best Cities for Singles”; “Best Cities for Polygamists”; “Best Cities for Small Rodents,” etc., etc. You can’t think of a category that someone hasn’t done a “Best Cities” list for.

My mouse and I found two interesting “Best Cities” lists without even trying: the “Best City to Have a Baby” according to FitPregnancy.com, which is Portland, Ore., and the “Ten Drunkest Cities” according to MensHealth.com — with Denver, Anchorage, Colorado Springs, Omaha, and Fargo, N.D. claiming the top five slots. Not a lot of mystery there, with nine hours of daylight and the whole place frozen solid six months of the year.

Frankly, I don’t pay much attention to the “Best Cities” lists, because I know how they’re done. Like so much in life, it’s marketing. The headline gives a cover or a link a lot of sizzle: “This Month: The 10 Best Cities in the Universe.” The moment you read that, you’re dying to know who’s No. 1. You can’t help it. It’s human nature.

Do the rankings mean anything? Not a thing. My grandmother is every bit as qualified as some overworked junior editor at Forbes to decide which city is “better” than another, and she died in 1971. But in deference to junior editors everywhere, let’s check out some of their latest picks.

Bellevue, Wash.: nice town about 15 minutes northeast of Seattle, across Lake Washington. I was in Bellevue just last week oddly enough, which benefits from being midway between Seattle and Redmond, the home of Microsoft and thus the center of the universe. Bellevue is about the size of Costa Mesa and similar in structure — mostly residential, but with a very dense urban center at one end of town, and the freeway that runs through Bellevue is, ironically, I-405. Very nice place, but one of the best cities in America? We’ll have to get back to you.

Coral Springs, Fla.: a master planned community about half an hour northwest of Fort Lauderdale, like Irvine with mosquitoes, about the same size — the city, not the mosquitoes. They are huge. There are two sets of traffic lights in Florida — one for the cars, one for the mosquitoes.

And there are no springs in Coral Springs. It was named by the developer, Coral Ridge Properties. See? It’s all about the marketing. Nice place, if you like doing things in a steam bath. One of the best cities in the U.S.? Apparently, junior editors have never been to Florida.

And finally, the city where dreams are born and fortunes are made and lost — the place that people around the world dream of seeing just once before they die: Fishers, Ind. It took a while to find it, but it’s about half an hour northeast of Indianapolis, which is of course a little bit of heaven. According to Money Magazine, “When it comes to smart planning and sheer livability, other places could learn a lot from this little city in the Midwest.”

You betcha. We’ll get right on that. You got your Dairy Queen, your Piggly Wiggly, and when it’s time to celebrate that important anniversary, it’s the Sizzler. Who in their right mind would want to live in Newport Beach when they could live in Fishers, Ind., just north of Indianapolis? Nobody I know.

That’s it then — the best cities ever and how they got there. It’ll be interesting to see the Newport Beach survey results when they come in. I’d be careful about jumping in the best-cities race though. If you come in behind Fishers, it’s not good. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at ptrb4@aol.com.