Come to TAMPA and experience why our city has been on many Best Cities lists over the years.
Through the years, the city of TAMPA and the whole Tampa Bay area have been recognized by various organizations and entities through their Best lists and their Top lists.
The Tampa Bay area is blessed with good weather all year, located in income-tax-free Florida, close to the Gulf of Mexico beaches, host of the MacDill Air Force Base, and proud of many more institutions and attractions, so it’s easy for Tampa Bay to make national and regional Best lists and Top lists.
These are 10 of the most recent Best lists and Top lists that have recognized the city of Tampa and the Tampa Bay area:
1. Tampa is the 14th Best Place to Own a Home.
Porch.com and Redfin ranked Tampa No. 14 in its List of the Best Places to Own a Home in the U.S. Tampa scored high in tax fairness, real estate confidence, walkability, resident satisfaction and educational opportunity.
Tampa was ranked second in tax fairness and sixth in real estate confidence.
Porch.com surveyed in July and August 2015 a sample of 10,007 U.S. homeowners regarding their sentiments about their cities, communities, climate, commute times, safety, taxes, access to education and real estate trends. Redfin provided information on local real estate situations.
2. The Tampa Bay metro area is No. 1 in Job Creation in Florida.
Among all Florida metro areas, the Tampa Bay metro area added 40,500 jobs over the year, the biggest increase across Florida, based on a report by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Job growth pushed down the metro area’s unemployment rate to a record low of 4.6 percent in November 2015.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that Tampa Bay’s job growth in 2015 is among the best in the nation.
3. Hillsborough County is No. 2 in hotel job growth in the U.S.
Hillsborough County’s hotel industry posted a high job growth rate of 6.12 percent, second only to that of Davidson County, Tennessee, based on an analysis by Headlight Data of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A high job growth rate in the Tampa Bay area highlights the fast growth of the area’s tourism industry
. According to Visit Tampa Bay, there are more than 78,000 tourism jobs in Hillsborough County, contributing more than $3 billion to the area’s economy.
4. Tampa is the Best Large City in the Southeast.
Money Magazine analyzed factors such as affordable housing, job market, health care accessibility, culture and open space in 63 U.S. cities with more than 300,000 residents and ranked Tampa as the best in the Southeast and one of the 5 best large cities in the U.S.
The other Best Large Cities are Pittsburgh in the Northeast, Denver in the West, Omaha in the Midwest and Mesa in the Southwest.
Money Magazine labelled Tampa as a Sunbelt beach city with international aspirations. It recognized the impact of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Stanley Cup finals games, the hosting of the 15th International Indian Film Academy Awards, the Tampa Museum of Art’s contemporary collections, Jeff Vinik’s $1 billion redevelopment project, the Tampa International Airport’s expansion, and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s expansion in Tampa.
5. Tampa is the 3rd Best City for an Active Lifestyle
Tampa has been identified by WalletHub as the 3rd best city among the country’s 100 most populated
cities in encouraging residents to have an active lifestyle. To rank the most populated cities,
WalletHub used 24 metrics and assigned values to each of the metrics that include average monthly
fitness club fee, average tennis court rent, number of sporting goods stores, percentage of residents
engaging in physical activities, number of swimming pools per one million residents, and number of
park playgrounds per 100,000 residens.
6. Tampa is the 6th Best City for Residential Real Estate Investment.
BiggerPockets.com ranked the Tampa metro area as the 6th best city among the 50 biggest housing markets in the U.S. for investing in residential real estate. Real estate investors in the area earned 16.4 percent from their investments over the year to 2015. Sales of Tampa homes continued to increase because of the affordable cost of living in Tampa, among many other reasons for living in Tampa.
7. Tampa is the 8th Best Wallet-Friendly Foodie City
Among the 150 most populous cities in the country, Tampa ranked 8th in gastronomic affordability. Cities were rated for food affordability and diversity, accessibility and quality. Affordability was based on cost of groceries, average beer and wine price, prevalence of affordable restaurants with ratings of at least 4.5 stars, sales tax and food tax.