Happy Birthday Emma

'Geography with Dan' celebrated the 18th Birthday of Meg last year, so it's only fair that I do the same for Emma. (If you're wondering who I'm going on about, these are two of my fellow Paston geographers!)

Finding a place called Emma wasn't difficult at all. In fact I had a choice of two but have decided to go with the following, simply because of the wealth of information about it.

Emma, in Missouri, is a city in the Lafayette and Saline counties. It's 2000 census recorded a population of 243, so not a megacity then! However, it does have some interesting characteristics about it. Back in 1888, funnily enough the year of the first National Geographic Edition, a post office was established and was called 'Emma'. Questions were raised as to why the building was named this, but the answer was always that they were instructed to select a short name. They weren't allowed to add a 'burg' or a 'ville' to the name. Emma met up to requirements and therefore, Emma it became.

The city since then has prospered with growth in the service industry. Less growth has been seen in its population. Since the 2000 census, the population growth rate has been -9.47%. Having said this, Emma's median house cost is fair, at $112,700 and the cost of living in the city is actually nearly 13% lower than the US average. Whilst living expenditures may be low, the unemployment rate is high, only about 0.5% lower than the US average but still a negative job growth.

Whilst Emma doesn't sound as brilliant as the Emma I have the fortune to sit next to in Geography, at least somewhere in the world is a city that is proud to have that as its name. Happy Birthday Emma!