SOUTH BEND, Ind. (June 29, 2020) — Resonance Consultancy, a leading advisor in real estate, tourism, and economic development for countries, cities, and communities, recently announced their 2020 ranking of America’s Best Small Cities, and South Bend made the list. Coming in at number 39, South Bend is among 100 top-performing small cities in America with metro populations ranging between 100,000 and 500,000.
“The South Bend – Elkhart region is honored to have one of its anchor cities be recognized as one of the best small cities in America,” said South Bend – Elkhart Regional Partnership President and CEO, Regina Emberton. “When one of our region’s 47 smart, connected, communities is featured, the entire region has contributed and benefits. We’ve always felt that our region is an ideal place to live, work, invest in, and travel to, and this study validates what we have known all along.”
The Resonance Best Cities rankings quantify and benchmark the relative quality of place, reputation, and competitive identity for the principal cities with metropolitan populations of 100,000 or more. They are lauded as the world’s most thorough city rankings, based on original methodology that analyzes key statistics as well as user-generated reviews and online activity in channels such as Google, Facebook and Instagram.
“The Best Cities rankings are composed of experiential factors that people consider most important in choosing a city to live and visit, as well as empirical factors that business decision-makers consider important in choosing where to invest,” says Resonance Consultancy President & CEO Chris Fair.
As a result, Resonance’s Best Cities rankings don’t just consider cities as places to live, work or visit—they take a more holistic approach using a wide range of factors that show positive correlations with attracting employment, investment and/or visitors—ranging from the number of culinary experiences, museums, and sights and landmarks each city offers, to the number of Fortune 500 corporations, direct flight connections and mentions each city has on Instagram.
And why a ranking of the nation’s best small cities now?
“America’s small cities have never mattered more to the future of the country,” says Fair.
“The nation’s small cities face particularly pivotal months ahead. Small-center urban growth was already rising before the pandemic. Now with millions of workers increasingly able to work remotely, many may choose to move to these smaller cities,” says Fair. ”At the same time, we expect travel to drive-to destinations to recover first. As American travelers hit the road, they’ll likely look to small cities to satisfy their travel desires.”
In other words, the demand for America’s small cities—from travelers, investors and families looking to settle down—will likely grow over the next 12 months. This ranking is their playbook for where to consider next.
The full list of America’s Top 100 cities is available at ResonanceCo.com/Reports and BestCities.org.
###
About South Bend – Elkhart Regional Partnership
The South Bend – Elkhart Regional Partnership (SBERP) is a collaboration of the economic development partners from 47 smart connected communities in Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan. The Regional Partnership focuses on a long-term systemic approach to advance the region’s economy by aligning the efforts of various stakeholders around five key areas: Educating a world-class WORKFORCE, Recruiting and retaining great TALENT, Attracting and growing new economy companies in complement to our remarkably strong manufacturing INDUSTRIES, Promoting INCLUSION and sparking opportunities for minorities and Helping ENTREPRENEURS thrive. The Regional Partnership seeks to unify and collaborate so that together, the communities across the region to work together to achieve what cannot be done individually. For more information about the Regional Partnership, visit SouthBendElkhart.org.
About Resonance Consultancy
As leading advisors in real estate, tourism and economic development, Resonance combines business strategy and marketing creativity to shape the future of communities, cities and countries. Our services span place development strategy, place marketing, placemaking and place branding. Our team has completed more than 100 destination and development projects in 70-plus countries. We work with developers, planners, architects, DMOs and economic development agencies to create vibrant and prosperous places. Please visit ResonanceCo.com for more.
Media Contacts
Regina Emberton (SBERP) – remberton@southbendelkhart.org or 574.344.4686
Tom Gierasimczuk (Resonance Consultancy) – tomg@resonanceco.com or 604.649.8664
