The Finest Locations to Dwell within the West

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Typically, you simply gotta carry the lake to you.

Whenever you hear of a metropolis like Tempe, Arizona — positioned on the northern fringe of the Sonoran Desert about 10 miles east of Phoenix — a waterfront vista filled with paddle boarders, kayakers and boaters won't be the primary picture that pops into your thoughts. Downtown Tempe will nonetheless deal with you to these unexpectedly attractive views vis a vis Tempe City Lake.

However it wasn’t at all times that manner. Regardless of its title, Tempe City Lake is definitely a two-mile lengthy, 225-acre synthetic reservoir that was created in 1999 by damming the dry Salt River.

Legend has it that the undertaking was born within the ‘60s, when an Arizona State College structure professor requested his college students to reimagine the Salt River mattress, which was getting used as a landfill. No matter its origins, the undertaking turned an enormous success, and the town authorities says that Tempe City Lake is now the second hottest attraction in all of Arizona, ostensibly behind the Grand Canyon.

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Past an ideal lake, what makes Tempe the most effective place to dwell within the West (and No. 2 on our total Finest Locations to Dwell record) is an ideal mixture of a robust financial system, variety of inhabitants and affordability.

Cash has narrowed down our Finest Locations record into 4 areas, and we centered on locations with populations of at the very least 50,000 that had been positioned within the 13 Western states as outlined by the U.S. Census. These states embrace: Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

We additionally restricted the rankings to at least one place per county and two locations per state. As with our core Finest Locations to Dwell rating, we collected roughly 350 items of knowledge on every Western place and grouped that data into 9 main rating classes reminiscent of facilities, price of dwelling, variety, financial alternative and extra. (See our full Finest Locations methodology for extra particulars.)

Whereas dwelling to Arizona State College, Tempe is rather more than a university city. After all, there are ample alternatives to check and occasion, however the mid-sized city of roughly 190,000 residents additionally boasts a thriving arts and music scene whereas offering a number of methods to benefit from the open air with its plentiful trails and parks.

Tempe’s financial system is especially price noting. Its unemployment charge — which has been hovering within the low 3% vary — has been persistently decrease than neighboring Phoenix, the state of Arizona and the nation total. Job progress within the space is anticipated to stay robust within the years forward as properly, leaping greater than 9% by way of 2026, in accordance with projections from Moody’s Analytics. And that’s on prime of 9% progress between 2016 and 2021.

All these elements present what locals already know: You possibly can’t discover a higher place than Tempe to work and play within the West. Take a look at our full prime 10 record under: