Boulder tops quality-of-life survey

For those who enjoy a lifestyle that America’s smaller – but not smallest – communities offer, Portfolio.com and bizjournals say that Boulder provides the highest quality of life out of all mid-sized communities nationwide.

The combined study of the organizations ranks Boulder No. 1 among 109 medium-sized markets, with populations between 250,000 and 750,000, in 20 statistical categories.

Portfolio.com and bizjournals gave the highest scores to areas with healthy economies, moderate costs of living, light traffic, impressive housing stocks and high-powered educational systems.

Boulder, with a population of 300,000 including the county, is a hub for high-tech industries and the home of the University of Colorado – two characteristics that have attracted a young, highly educated work force, according to Portfolio.com. It also earned high scores across the board in the quality-of-life study, placing among the 10 best markets in 13 of the 20 categories.

Among its strengths are:

• 56 percent of Boulder’s adults have bachelor’s degrees – the strongest concentration in any midsize metro. Just eight other markets are above 35 percent.

• Slightly more than half of Boulder’s workers hold jobs in the sector that pays the highest salaries – management or professional. Ann Arbor, Mich., is the only other market with 50 percent or more of their workers in that sector.

• Boulder has more than an average share of large homes, with nine rooms in 18 percent of its houses – a figure that only Provo and Ogden, Utah, can beat.

• Boulder is seventh in two key financial categories: its median household income of $65,960 is the seventh highest in the study group, and its poverty rate of 5.8 percent is the seventh lowest.

Portfolio.com and bizjournals based their quality-of-life rankings on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006-2008 American Community Survey, released late last year.

But Boulder wasn’t the only Colorado metro area among the top 10 for quality of life: Fort Collins (all of Larimer, actually, with a population of 292,889) ranked third and Colorado Springs seventh in the survey.

While Portfolio.com noted Fort Collins’ sizable pool of bright, young workers and that nearly 42 percent of its adults have college degrees, it pointed out Colorado Springs’ impressive growth, big houses, well-educated workers and a substantial number of young adults.

The Sunbelt dominates the opposite end of the quality-of-life scale, with medium-size markets from Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas holding the nine lowest positions, according to Portfolio.com. Last place belongs to Visalia, Cali., with the lowest percentage of management and professional workers in the study – 23.9 percent, which is less than half of Boulder’s 50.1 percent. Visalia is also dead last in the share of adults with college degrees at 12.7 percent.

Here’s a look at all of the metros joining Boulder on the top 10 list:



















Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/us-uncovered/2010/06/30/boulder-colorado-leads-in-quality-of-life-survey-for-mid-sized-us-cities#ixzz0sqXCrnBc.