Topeka and Des Moines ranked in a top 10 alongside Austin, Seattle, Boulder and D.C.? Believe it.
Topeka cracked Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine's "10 Best Cities for the Next Decade."
"In its reserved, midwestern way, Topeka has engineered a prosperity that most cities of similar size would envy," writes Kathryn A. Watson. "As the capital city of Kansas, nearly 25% of Topeka's workforce is employed by the government, providing a stable job market where unemployment has stayed around 7%. The city boasts quality schools, friendly people, good hospitals, a university and -- one of its biggest selling points -- low housing costs."
Kiplinger's touts the $250 million expansion of the Goodyear Tire
and Rubber plant and the growth of PT's Coffee Roasting Co. And the
Google's April Fool's Day name change to "Topeka" didn't hurt either -- a
big nod there to Think Big Topeka, which vied to be Google's guinea pig
for its high-speed Internet experiment.
But not all is well in
Topeka. Its downtown dies after 5 -- another issue the city is trying to
solve. If you're not convinced Topeka is top-10 worthy, take the video
tour and see for yourself.
Here's the top 10
1. Austin, Texas
2. Seattle, Washington
3.
Washington, D.C.
4. Boulder, Colorado
5. Salt Lake City, Utah
6.
Rochester, Minnesota
7. Des Moines, Iowa
8. Burlington, Vermont
9.
West Hartford, Connecticut
10. Topeka, Kansas
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As much as I hate Topeka, I would add one more to its positives list: Topeka stands to gain from the emerging "bio sciences corridor" from Manhattan to KC.
Negatives: Wanamaker.
Hi,I'm Doug Harbrecht with Kiplinger.com. You can check out everything Kiplinger has to say about Topeka on kiplinger.com today. The full package, with a longer online-only version of Kathryn's story, is now posted on the Web site. You can vote for Topeka as your best city on Facebook. And please let us know what you think with a reader comment, too. Thanks for your interest.
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