Tampa was recognized in the large American cities category for human capital & lifestyle and connectivity
TAMPA, Florida (September 18, 2019) – fDi Magazine recently published its competitive ranking of American Cities of the Future 2019/2020. Tampa won 5th place for best large city for connectivity and 10th best large city for human capital & lifestyle.
fDi Magazine is part of the fDi Intelligence and GIS Planning portfolio of investment products and services from the Financial Times. fDi is published bi-monthly with an ABC audited circulation of 15,289 active corporate readers and crossborder investment professionals.
“It’s an honor to be recognized as one of fDi’s American Cities of the Future for our connectivity and human capital and lifestyle,” said Jane Castor, Mayor of Tampa. “It’s an exciting time in Tampa. We’re growing and evolving in terms of both population and new developments. We want to keep that momentum going, but we’re also working hard to make sure we manage our growth in a smart way so that we not only maintain our excellent lifestyle and connectivity but make them even better.”
To rank a city’s connectivity score, several datapoints were reviewed such as upload and download speeds, number of ports within 100km, distance to the nearest international airport, number of international destinations served, companies in the transportation sector per 100,000 people, quality of overall infrastructure, and much more.
Human capital & lifestyle datapoints include number of students, number of higher education institutions, number of top 500 universities, number of business schools in Global MBA rankings, skillset of graduates, literacy rate, tertiary enrollment rate, number of physicians per 1,000 people, life expectancy, and Social Progress Index, among others.
To create a shortlist for fDi’s American Cities of the Future 2019/20, the fDi Intelligence division of the Financial Times collected data using the specialist online tools fDi Markets and fDi Benchmark. In total, 218 locations were analyzed for the study. Data was then collected for these 218 locations under five categories: Economic Potential, Business Friend¬liness, Human Capital and Lifestyle, Cost Effectiveness and Connectivity. Loca¬tions scored up to a maxi¬mum of 10 points for each datapoint, which were weighted by importance to the FDI decision-making process in order to compile both the subcategory rank¬ings as well as the overall ‘American Cities of the Future 2019/20’ ranking.
Cities in the study were categorized according to population. Tampa was among the 42 ‘Large’ locations, with immediate city popula¬tions of more than 500,000 and a wider larger urban zone (LUZ) population of more than 1 million, or a LUZ of more than 2 million.
More information on the rankings and methodology can be found at fdiintelligence.com.
About the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation
The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation is the lead designated economic development agency for Hillsborough County and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace. A partnership between the public sector and private corporate investors, the EDC works to develop and sustain a thriving local economy through the attraction, retention and expansion of high-wage jobs and capital investment within targeted industry sectors, including Corporate Headquarters, Financial and Shared Services, Life Sciences, Defense and Security, and Manufacturing.
The Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation exists because of the generous support of over 100 corporations, Hillsborough County, and the cities of Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace. For more information, visit www.tampaedc.com.
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