Overland Park / Leawood   Overland Park, Kansas, is one of the best places to live in the United States. In 2006 CNNMoney.com named it NO. 6 on its "Top 10 great American Towns." Money magazine placed Overland Park No. 3 on its December 2003 list of "Hot Towns." In June 2003, Employment Review magazine and BestJobsUSA.com named it one of the 20 best places to live and work in the country. Business Development Outlook magazine had Overland Park second among 4,700 U.S. cities in livability in its July 2001 edition, based on public safety, daily commute time, education and access to culture and entertainment. The states second largest city, Overland Park occupies about 63 miles stretching south from the Johnson/Wyandotte County line to 183rd street along both sides of Metcalf Avenue. Within its boundaries are dozens of office parks and shopping centers, hundreds of restaurants and businesses, and the 1.5 million square-foot regional retail center with 190 stores. Its 25-block historic downtown has been re-energized with new shops, art galleries, eateries, the Clock Tower Plaza and a Farmers' Market Pavilion. In early fall 2007, the new 80,000 square-foot Matt Ross Community Recreation Center will open in the heart of the downtown district. The Overland Park Convention Center is a 237,000 square-foot state of the art facility that is the site of hundreds of private and public events and the ongoing rotating exhibits in public gallery spaces "Art in the Center." Overland Park is home to the nationally recognized New Theatre Restaurant, two public golf courses, six public swimming pools, four small lakes, and 78 parks, including the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead and the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Garden.       Leawood, Kansas, is an upscale community that stretches over 14.7 square miles along the Missouri/Kansas state line from about 80th to 154th streets, adjacent to Kansas City, MO. Johnson County, Kansas, is one of the prettiest and best places to live, work and play in the United States. (American City Business Journals Inc. recently ranked it NO. 7 out of 3,141 Counties for quality of life and NO. 6 among most educated)         Johnson County, Kansas, is one of the prettiest and best places to live, work and play in the United States. (American City Business Journals Inc. recently ranked it NO. 7 out of 3,141 counties for quality of life and NO. 6 among most educated.) It has a national reputation for residential and educational excellence. Part of the 15-county Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area, Johnson County is just west of Kansas City, MO., and south of Kansas City, KS., along two river valleys in eastern Kansas.