Providence got a double ego boost last week, with a No. 35 ranking on Forbes magazine’s annual “Best Places for Business and Careers” list – ahead of No. 40 Boston and No. 41 Hartford – and inclusion on AmericanStyle magazine’s “Top 25 Arts Destinations” list.
Mayor David N. Cicilline called it “an honor” for the city “to be recognized for the hard work that we’re doing to improve the quality of life for our residents.”
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“These notable rankings by two prestigious publications confirm what we’re witnessing,” he said: “restored trust in Providence is resulting in a stronger business climate and our exciting arts and culture community is transforming Providence into the Jewel of the Northeast.”
The Forbes list, which last year had ranked Providence seven notches lower, is based on three main factors: cost of doing business, job growth, and residents’ educational attainment. It also considers the cost of living, local crime rates, the number of engineers working in the city, and the presence of amenities such as museums, theaters, golf courses and sports teams.
Providence beat Boston and Hartford, by a long shot, on job growth and the cost of doing business (though it still ranked lower on those categories, No. 57 and No. 56, respectively, than overall). But on educational attainment – long known to be a weakness of the local work force – Providence ranked only 82nd, compared with Boston’s No. 5 and Hartford’s No. 26.
