It is a day full of rankings, so I’ll get us started: I rank winter my least favorite season, but the most likely season for me to spill a bowl of warm oatmeal in my bed — intentionally. I’m sure that ranking is on the Internet somewhere, but that’s not the one I’m focusing on at the moment. Instead, Lawrence has been ranked on two lists: one good and one not so good.

It is Monday — the No. 1 ranked day to confuse your Brylcreem for your toothpaste — so it seems fitting to start with the not so good. The Milken Institute has again come out with its lists of the Best-Performing Cities in America. If you remember, the 2012 study ranked Lawrence as the second worst performing small metro area in the country. The 2013 report ranked Lawrence No. 105 out of about 180 small cities. Well, the 2014 report is out, and Lawrence checks in at . . . No. 99 out of 179.

So, we’re improving. We’ve moved up 79 spaces in three years, which if we were talking about KU football would cause fans to have a love letter to David Beaty tattooed on their foreheads. But I would guess that some community leaders still find it irksome that several of our peer communities rank quite a bit higher than Lawrence. They include: Iowa City, No. 5; College Station, Texas, No. 8; Columbia, Mo, No. 11 after having been ranked No. 1 in 2013; Ames, Iowa, No. 14; and Waco, Texas, No. 21. Those are all college towns, but high rankings weren’t just reserved for college communities. St. Joseph, Mo., an industrial town that has built up a hub of animal science companies, ranked No. 16.

This study looks at a variety of statistics related to job growth, wage growth and several measures of high-tech firms that are located in a community. Lawrence has talked a lot about wanting to be a community that has a significant presence in the high-tech world, so these rankings really are measuring the type of community we want to be. Here’s a look at how we ranked in each of the eight categories measured. Remember, there are 179 communities ranked, so anything above 89 puts us in the top half of the cities ranked.

• Job growth from 2008 to 2013: No. 82.

• Job growth from 2012 to 2013: No. 117

• Wage growth from 2007 to 2012: No. 104

• Wage growth from 2011 to 2012: No. 112

• Short term job growth from Aug. 2013 to Aug. 2014: No. 17

• High-tech GDP growth from 2008 to 2013: No. 63

• High-tech GDP growth from 2012 to 2013: No. 110

• High-tech GDP concentration 2013: No. 100

• Number of high-tech companies compared with national average: No. 129.

The number that gives reason for optimism is the short-term job numbers from 2013 to 2014. As we’ve reported previously, Lawrence has had a good year in terms of new job numbers, according to federal statistics. Local economic development leaders continue to have a hard time pinpointing where those new jobs are at, but we’ll keep an eye on those numbers in 2015 to see if they continue on an upward track.

The numbers that continue to grate on people the most probably are the wage growth numbers. The expectation is that Lawrence’s status as a highly educated community has to start translating into higher wages at some point. Thus far, all of our wage growth numbers are in the lower half of the study.

As for other cities in the study: Topeka ranked No. 102. Manhattan was just small enough population-wise that it was not part of the study. Fargo, N.D., was the top ranked small metro area. The Milken Institute also conducted a separate ranking for 200 larger cities. Kansas City finished No. 77, while Wichita was ranked No. 154. The highest ranked cities in the region were Denver at No. 12, Boulder at No. 13, and Fort Collins, Colo., at No. 17. San Francisco was the top ranked large city.

As for the study’s authors, The Milken Institute indeed was founded by convicted junk bond felon Michael Milken, but its studies have been pretty well-regarded as being worthwhile research.

• The second study that mentions Lawrence has to do with the “livability” of Lawrence. The folks at the Web site Livability.com have released their Top 100 Best Places to Live ranking for “small to mid-sized cities.”

Lawrence ranks No. 74 on the list. The study’s authors looked at about 2,000 cities with populations between 20,000 and 350,000 people. The study looks at a variety of factors about schools, housing, crime rates, income levels, health care and other such factors. The report notes Lawrence’s strong economic sectors of education, agriculture, finance, and government and scientific research. It also highlights Lawrence’s “vibrant art and music scene.”

Lawrence was one of three Kansas communities on the list. Overland Park was No. 17 and Manhattan was No. 70. Other cities in the region included: Boulder, Colo., No. 4; Iowa City, No. 10; Fort Collins, Colo., No. 24; Ames, Iowa, No. 30; Lincoln, Neb., No. 37; Columbia, Mo., No. 50; Des Moines, Iowa, No. 82; Springfield, Mo., No. 85.

The No. 1 ranked city was Madison, Wis. That’s fine and good, but it would take a lot of oatmeal for me to live there in the winter.