Boulder Ranked #1 City to Live well By Forbes

BOULDER, Colo. — Boulder once again has nabbed the top spot on a Forbes list.

Boulder topped the magazine’s list of “America’s top 25 towns to live well.” In 2008, Forbes put Boulder at the top of its “smartest cities” and “best-educated cities” lists.

The most-recent report ranks “towns” — or city, town, borough or Census-designated-place under 100,000 people — according to areas such as median income; commute; percentage of young and educated people; per capita venture capital funding; and per capita small businesses and startups.

“Boulder is a consistent high performer in all of our measures,” Forbes staff said on its Web site.

The magazine highlighted a couple of those measures: Boulder’s businesses bring in $1,165 in per capita venture capital funding; the city ranks in the top 5 percent for patents per capita; and is second in its number of sole proprietors.

Forbes tracked Boulder’s population at 90,648 and its median income at $54,243.

In terms of “drawbacks,” Forbes staff wrote: “If you don’t like snow, this might not be the place for you.”

Coming in second was Doral, Fla., which strengths included its access to golf courses and the number of small businesses in areas such as aerospace and logistics. Rounding out the top five were Fairfax, Va.; Mountain View, Calif.; and Cupertino, Calif.

More than half of the towns on the top 25 are located in California or Maryland. Boulder was the only town in Colorado to make the 25.