Livability.com Lists Top Best Places to Live in 2019

Livability.com shares the 2019 top best places to live. Our home town, Boise Idaho, is listed number 1. According to their website, Livability showcases America’s best places to live, covering research-driven topics about communities around the country through engaging stories, photography and video.

Take a walk around this year’s #1 city and ask people where they’re from, and chances are you’ll meet a lot of recent transplants from places like Portland, the Bay Area and New York. That’s no coincidence.

Boise has become a magnet for people looking for a tight-knit community, great job opportunities, easy access to the outdoors — and perhaps most importantly, a much lower cost of living than many larger and comparably sized cities.  

Young families are drawn to Boise because it’s one of the safest cities in the world. In addition, Boise’s combination of affordability and do-it-yourself spirit make it the perfect place for creatives (check out the awesome comedy scene), entrepreneurs and startups. The tech scene here is growing fast, with new talent flocking to the city, eager to find a work-life balance that allows for plenty of fresh air and adventure.  
Boise has appeared on Livability’s Top 100 Best Places to Live ranking every year since the list’s inception, but this is the city’s first — and well-deserved — appearance in the #1 spot.  

Livability.com

Read more about Boise:

• 8 Reasons to Move to Boise Right Now
• Why Boise, Idaho is a Top 100 Best Place to Live
• These are the Best Places to Live in Idaho

Author John Masters reports on the latest news about Boise, Idaho.

Report: Boise ranked as 2nd best capital city to live in

WalletHub looked at 54 key metrics to identify the most livable seats of state government.

Boise ranked as the second best state capital to live in the U.S., according to a new report from the personal finance website WalletHub.

WalletHub compared all 50 state capitals across 54 key metrics to identify the most livable seats of state government. They ranged from cost of living to affordability to unemployment to economic well being to the number of attractions.

Check out the full report and rankings at 2019’s Best State Capitals to Live in.

Most Active Cities in America

Julie Peirano | February 20, 2018

Cultural Cheatsheet lists the most active cities in America that will keep you fit in 2019 They listed Boise, Idaho with the following stats.

What makes a city healthy? According to WalletHub, it’s a combination of 38 factors, including affordable fitness memberships, many physically active citizens, and a lot of swimming pools, tennis courts, and basketball hoops. These are the 15 healthiest cities in America. Where does your town rank?

• Score: 49.56/100
• Best category: 2nd best city for “budget and participation”
• Also known as: 3rd best-run city in America, 10th safest city

These U.S. Cities Are the Safest Places to Live, Work, and Play

Ali Harrison | January 23, 2019

Money and Career Cheatsheet listed Boise Idaho as one of the safest places to live, work, and play.

Life involves hazards. Traffic accidents, natural disasters, and other setbacks occur everywhere, but some regions are much safer than others. If you hope to have a safe, healthy life, you’ll want to pack up and head to one of these U.S. cities, the safest places to live, work, and play.

Boise, Idaho loves to be first. It’s the No. 1 most financially safe city in the U.S., and it ties for first with a few others for the lowest unemployment rate. Things seem pretty idyllic in Boise; the town has a “greenbelt” of beautiful trails and parks along its river, and residents enjoy vibrant arts and outdoor scenes.

2018’s Best-Run & Worst-Run Cities in America

Jul 9, 2018  |  Adam McCann, Financial Writer

Wallethub includes two cities in the Treasure Valley area as the best run cities for 2018. Nampa, Idaho was ranked first and Boise, Idaho was ranked 3rd best.

How do we measure the effectiveness of local leadership? One way is by determining a city’s operating efficiency. In other words, we can learn how well city officials manage and spend public funds by comparing the quality of services residents receive against the city’s total budget.
Using that approach, WalletHub compared the operating efficiency of 150 of the largest U.S. cities to reveal which among them are managed best. We constructed a “Quality of Services” score made up of 35 metrics grouped into six service categories, which we then measured against the city’s per-capita budget. Read on for our findings, expert insight and a full description of our methodology.

Source: WalletHub

In the fast-growing Idaho city, Boise residents grapple with challenges of growth and new arrivals. Read the Curbed article by Patrick Sisson.

“The Boise metro area (population 700,000) has also experienced the downsides of rapid growth. Idaho, now the fastest-growing state in the nation, and Boise, a boomtown by many measures, have felt the strain from the city’s recent success. Downtown is straining under traffic problems, and housing costs have skyrocketed. The state projects the region will add another 100,000 residents by 2025.”

Michael Deeds of Words and Deeds updates his readers about bodegas opening in downtown Boise in his report Boise is the next Portland? More like New York City. Bodegas are opening Downtown.

If you don’t know what a bodega is, you can do what Michael did and google it. If you are familiar with New York City, you already know about bodegas, since there are thousands of the small grocery or corner convenience stores throughout the city. Boise is just starting to learn about these local places where they take pride in making customers feel like family.

CLICK HERE to read Michael’s article.

Boise Real Estate News – Why I left New York City metro for Idaho, the fastest growing US state – Business Insider

Here at Find Your Home in Boise we often read news articles about our great state and our beautiful city.  Boise has become the place to visit and the place to buy a home.  Many are surprised to read that Idaho’s population grew faster than any other state in the country last year.  This article, by author Benjamin Rippey, details why he and his wife decided to move from an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey to a home in Boise, Idaho.

Read the article HERE.

From ‘Joisey’ to Boise: Why I left the New York City metro area for Idaho, the fastest-growing state in the US.  Business Insider Article.

CNN is highlighting the City of Boise with a video that shows the true quality of life we have here in the City of Trees and one of the hidden gems in the state of Idaho.

You can surf in the middle of Boise, Idaho  – Boise, Idaho has over 90 parks including that offer activities like surfing, paddle boarding, biking and canoeing. Many parks are named for women, thanks to donations from potato farming families.

Source: CNN

The Boise River Greenbelt, used for hiking and biking along the Boise River, serves as the uniting ribbon that link Boise’s precious recreational parks—the properties given to the city in honor of some of Boise’s finest civic leaders. The parks are legacies of these remarkable women and their commitment to their community.

These parks are known as the Ribbon of Jewels.

The Boise foothills have become a favorite playground for hikers, mountain bikers, and dog walkers. The Ridge to Rivers trail system is one of the best trail networks anywhere in the west with 135 miles of trails.

Boise, Idaho (CNN) — Boise, the capital of Idaho, is becoming one of America’s most interesting small cities.

It feels thoroughly Western, with long expanses of land in every direction, but the city’s affordability has brought new residents from around the USA and the world.

The result: an up-and-coming mix of healthy restaurants, outdoorsy activities and friendly locals.

One of those locals is Tammy Stowe-McClure, who has become known not only to her fellow Idahoans but to the whole world as a contestant on the popular competition show “American Ninja Warrior.”

CNN Travel Article – Best Things to Do in Boise

UPROXX reviewed our hometown’s music festival, Treefort.

Read their review:

Boise’s Treefort Shows The Possibilities Of Diversity And Representation At Music Festivals

When referring to major American Music Festivals of 2018, the article notes that

” It often times tends to be smaller, more thoughtfully curated events that don’t get a ton of national press that rise above the norm and set the standards for how music fests should look.  Just this week in Boise, Idaho, one of these festivals kicked off its seventh year.”

“The real star of Treefort Music Festival is Boise itself. For anyone unfamiliar with the Idaho state capitol, the likely perception is that it is merely a blip on a map, the place with the blue football field, a likely quiet town without much in the way of culture or attractions. But Boise is so much more than that. Along with the blue field of Boise State comes the young vibrancy typical of college towns. But even the word “town” feels insufficient for a city of more than 200,000 people. Boise falls in the sweet spot of being big enough to house ample satisfying options for cuisine, hotels, and activities while also giving its residents and visitors the feeling of calm and space. For someone from LA or similar urban sprawls, it is very easy to fall in love.”

The History of Treefort Music Festival

According to Treefort Music Festival Website,

“Idaho – With our vast wilderness areas and mountain ranges, clean rivers and lakes, open prairies and big skies, this big little state in the NW can often feel like living on the frontier of a young developing nation — and it’s exciting times on the frontier.”

“Music is the trunk of Treefort. We get our biggest thrills from welcoming spellbinding well-known and independent emerging artists from all over the globe. Since the festival’s inception, Boise has played host to thousands of bands traveling from within the Treasure Valley or as far as Western Europe, the Middle East and Australia. Just like the uniqueness of every tree, each Treefort Music Fest features a wide variety of musicians and bands – every Treefort moment has its own soundtrack.”

2018 Treefort Music Fest – Boise, Idaho treefortmusicfest.com

Boise, Idaho in the News

According to a March 2, 2018 Idaho Statesman article Boise is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.  Quoting Forbes, the capital city exceeded 2017 expansion projections “by nearly every metric that matters.”  Moody’s Analytics indicates that Boise’s growth spurt is likely to continue.

Boise has “the pieces in place.  It’s got the location, it’s got low cost, a healthy tech presence,” Moody’s senior economist Adam Kamins told Forbes.

The Idaho Statesman goes on to say “Locals who dig their heels in against the explosive growth may take some comfort in Forbes 2018 projections”. The rate of growth should taper off, experts say. Most notably, Boise’s climbing home prices are projected to slow considerably (from fourth-highest in the country to a projected spot of 23rd).

In 2018, the city’s population will grow an estimated 2.34 percent, Forbes predicts, and jobs will grow about 2.61 percent. Local economic growth is expected to hold steady at eighth in the nation, or 5.12 percent. Wages should climb 5.7 percent, the fifth-fastest projected increase in the nation.

Read more from Forbes . . .

Full List: America’s Fastest-Growing Cities 2018

Forbes Article – America’s Fastest Growing Cities 2018 – Boise, Idaho