Add this to the list of accolades for Champa Bay: the Tampa Bay area has been named the No. 1 city in Florida and the No. 22 best city in the country by the annual Best Cities Report for 2021.
The report is created annually by Resonance Consultancy, a Canadian-based real estate and tourism company, and it seeks to find the best 100 cities in the country. The list has been lauded by Google, Instagram and other social media platforms as the most thorough city ranking since its debut in 2014.
Although referred to as a city in the report, the broad Greater Tampa Bay region including Clearwater and St. Petersburg was recognized. The area was praised on the list for its 361 days of sunshine per year, outdoor attractions and a low crime rate. Some of the outdoor activities specifically named are DeSoto State Park and Clearwater beaches, as well as the beautiful Tampa Riverwalk. Growing tourism numbers also attributed to the city’s favorable ranking.
The city also came in as No. 10 on the list for attractions. The report reads,
“The pandemic hasn’t slowed the city’s investment into its visitor economy or its cultural infrastructure. The newly opened Peninsularium is a multi-artist, multimillion-dollar effort to provide Tampa with its first and only permanent, immersive arts installation experience.”
The rankings are based on 23 different factors, including worker wages, quality of schools and recreation, weather, crime and cost of living. All of these are combined into six metrics –– place, product, people, prosperity, programming and promotion.
The place category includes factors such as weather, landmarks, neighborhoods and safety. The report defines product as “a city’s key institutions, attractions and infrastructure,” which includes professional sports teams and university rankings.
Programming is described as arts and entertainment including shopping, culture and nightlife. People is “immigration rate and diversity of a city, including the subcategories of Foreign Born and Educational Attainment.”
Finally, prosperity is decided by the median household income, as well as the overall employment rate, and promotion is described as the quantity of stories, references and recommendations shared online about a city, which includes Google and Trip Advisory reviews.
Not too shabby, TB.
Written by Jen Clark
