People across the nation like Tempe,
or so they tell us.
Here is a sampling of some awards we received:

• : Tempe Best Place to Start a New Business:  The criteria used for the designation included a variety of demographic, business, and geographic variables that impact the probable success of a business start-up.  The analysis weighed 11 factors to gauge an area's entrepreneurial climate, including the number of small businesses and startups, the quality of the workforce, measures of innovation such as the number of patents issued and the amount of venture capital invested. Check out the Arizona Republic story.

•  This magazine named the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area, in August 2009, one of 10 Best Places to Start a New Business.

•   Tempe and the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area was named one of the 10 Best Places for Tech Jobs in 2009 by US News and World Reports. According to the article, Phoenix has 4,200 high-tech companies and upwards of 81,000 high-tech jobs. Benefitting the region are major tech corporations with a presence in the area, but Phoenix boasts plenty of smaller—but still familiar—employers, such as domain registrar GoDaddy. The community ranks high in overall tech job openings and in the ratios of job openings to employment for several IT jobs. Credit goes, in part, to Arizona State University, which nurtures advances at its College of Technology and Innovation and Advanced Technology Innovation Center.

• Tempe named North American City of the Future : Tempe and the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area were recognized as North American Cities of the Future for 2009/2010 by fDi Magazine (Foreign Direct Investment) this month. In the overall category of Major Cities of the Future, Phoenix ranked 10th in North America  with other cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In the category of Small Cities of the Future, Tempe was fifth in North America for best human resources, meaning  best potential employees, following cities such as Pasadena and Minneapolis. Tempe also had the fifth largest number of post-secondary students in North America for cities of its size.

  

• In a recent poll by the O'Neil Associates/ASBA Arizona Economic Indicators Monitor, Tempe ranked as the Arizona city with the highest quality of life and the best downtown.

• Urban Land Institute calls Tempe’s Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway in the downtown area and Warner and Priest, at Emerald Center, two of the hottest intersections in the state.

• The American Planning Association considers Mill Avenue one of the Ten Great Streets in America.

• Arizona Economic Engine Award from Arizona Business Magazine for successfully recruiting new businesses and developments to Tempe

• Smart Growth Award: Urban Land Institute Arizona named the City of Tempe and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West the first recipients of this honor. The award recognizes those that follow sustainable, economically and environmentally sound principles.

• Utne Magazine calls Tempe one of the 10 Most Enlightened Suburbs in America for its redevelopment and historic preservation efforts in the Mill Avenue and Town Lake areas.

• Tempe is one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People, according to the America’s Promise Alliance. The award honors outstanding efforts on behalf of young people by multiple sectors of communities.

• Tempe is the Most Walkable City in Arizona, according to Walkscore.com. Downtown Tempe's Mill Avenue District scored 98 out of 100 for one of the best places to take a healthy walk.

•  Tempe received the 10 Best New Bridges in America award by Roads and Bridges Magazine and a separate award by Southwest Contractor Magazine for the new light rail bridge spanning Tempe Town Lake.

• Papago Gateway Center was named  Best Green Building by Southwest Contractor Magazine. The LEED certified building was designed as a biotech-oriented space with wet labs and is adjacent to a light rail station.