5/22/2006 

ROANOKE, VA has been selected as a "5-Star Quality of Life Metro" in Expansion Management's 8th Annual "Quality of Life Quotient" which will be released in the May/June Issue. 5-Star Quality of Life Metros will also be posted prominently on Expansion Management's website for an entire year! 

If you owned a mid-sized (100-500 employees) company that is growing rapidly, and you needed to find the best place to locate a new manufacturing or distribution facility, or perhaps a back office operation, why would you care about something like quality of life? After all, with the possible exception of transferring a few key employees, most of your future employees will be hired from your new location anyway. The reason you would care is that each of your new employees will want to be able to tap into the American Dream, and the cost to you as an employer will vary from metro to metro. 

"True quality of life is about employees being able to afford to tap into the American Dream," says Bill King, editor of Expansion Management. "It's about being able to afford to own a home, to be able to send your children to good schools, to feel safe from crime, to live in a place with a reasonable cost of living. This study simply shows you a way to quantify what most people still consider a highly subjective area."

 A significant part of the American Dream involves home ownership, or at least the ability to afford to live in a decent house or apartment. Just as important are good public schools, as well as the ability of families and individuals to meet their financial needs and desires. Median family income, per capita income and per capita disposable income levels were combined with cost of living adjustments, state and local tax burdens, family and individual poverty levels, and unemployment rates. In all, a total of 362 MSAs were compared according to nearly 50 statistical criteria and came up with a ranking that most middle-class people can identify with.

"Quality of life is available in just about any place in the United States," said Bill King, editor of Expansion Management magazine. "The only question is how much it will cost to an individual to tap into it. That's an important issue for employers, because it translates into how much an employer will have to pay to obtain and retain quality employees." 

Visit www.expansionmanagement.com.