We frequently give praise to Scottsdale, and for good reason. It’s nationally (and sometimes internationally) known as a great place to vacation, to party, to retire and to live. However, something else has been brewing in the city: a growing reputation as a center of business and commerce, and we haven’t been the only people to notice.
Today’s immense praise comes from WalletHub, which recently named Scottsdale as its number one city for jobs out of 180 cities, and with a wide margin over Tampa at the number two spot. The methodology is a robust one, with nearly twenty metrics used and extra weighting given to job opportunities, employment growth, unemployment rate and employment outlook. Tempe was the next Arizona city as the 13 spot, with Tucson all the way down at the 120 spot.
WalletHub also calculated a secondary measure, socioeconomic rank, in which Scottsdale ranked an impressive sixth place. This rank had ten different metrics, mostly related to quality of life, with scores for items such as annual income, affordability, family- and dating-friendliness.
However, for regular readers none of this should be too surprising, as it is increasingly obvious that large corporations and small companies alike are finding myriad reasons to set up shop in Scottsdale. We highlighted this recently with semiconductor equipment company ASM’s announcement that they are making a major investment in the city. Much of the credit goes to the state and surrounding cities, which have also worked hard to entice global corporations (specifically tech companies) to have a presence here; these efforts have clearly had a halo effect, with suppliers to those corporations finding value in geographical proximity.
That said, they could easily set up shop in Phoenix, Mesa, the West Valley, or other municipalities. There is clearly another halo effect at play: the reputation of Scottsdale. CEOs, business leaders and high level employees want to live in Scottsdale, so it makes sense to set up shop there as well. They like long, traffic-filled commutes as much as you and I, after all.
While none of this is necessarily surprising on its face, it appears as though there is a larger conclusion to pull from this: that Scottsdale should no longer be seen as just the ideal place to retire or the ideal place to golf in the winter. It is now taking its place at the top of the Valley as the ideal place to start a business or to move your business to, which undoubtedly will better support all of the exemplary leisure options within the city limits.