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Sunshine illuminates a path in the Louisiana Boardwalk Outlets in Bossier City, La., as Shreveport can be seen in the background Thursday, May 9, 2024. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Businesses that are looking to bring employees to northwest Louisiana know that they are competing with all the places that people say they would love to live, cities like Austin, Nashville, Denver.
A new study by RentCafe.com says that Shreveport and Bossier City also have qualities worth promoting to those thinking of relocating. Their study of America's most livable metros looked at three broad categories: socioeconomics, location and community, and quality of life.
Under each were subsets. Socioeconomics included cost of living, income inequality ratio and more. Location and community rated length of commutes, housing problems and availability of entertainment venues.
Quality of life looked at the number of people with health care and health care provider ratio. Using that data, midwestern cities dominate nine of the top ten. It is worth noting that year 'round weather conditions did not play a role in the survey.
Portland, Maine; Lincoln, Nebraska; Des Moines, Iowa; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Green Bay, Wisconsin and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania grabbed the top spots.
Where Shreveport/Bossier City landed Shreveport-Bossier City was No. 115 on the RentCafe.com list, coming in ahead of Tallahassee, Florida, Las Vegas, Nevada, Birmingham, Alabama, San Antonio, Texas, among others, and in Louisiana — Lafayette and Baton Rouge.
In the Location and Community category, Shreveport was 46th, showing the importance of shorter local commutes. The survey stated that "Almost 72% of commuters in Shreveport spend less than 30 minutes on the road. Compare that to Baton Rouge, where nearly half of residents face long commutes, often losing valuable hours stuck in traffic.
" The local cost of living is 8% lower than the national average. Challenges remain for the area One number that is several percentage points above most cities deals with housing challenges such as overcrowding or lack of basic amenities. The number Rentcafe.
com reports locally — 15% — is generally higher than other cities of the same population. When the data was compiled the local unemployment rate was 7.5%, the highest of the cities surveyed, but the number of those without health insurance, 9%, was about half that of many other cities including cities in Texas and Florida, and a list of other southern locales.
In Louisiana, only New Orleans came in above Shreveport at No. 110. Shreveport, at No.
115, was rated "more livable" than Baton Rouge at 130 and Lafayette at 134..
