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Nashville's getting noticed nationwide, largely because the city's hitting the top of various lists created by various data-crunching organizations. It all adds up to a growth market on a national playing field, which is a fairly new thing for the city. The following are six times Nashville has made a top 10 list recently.
Best Cities For Jobs: No. 4
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Forbes magazine put the Nashville MSA fourth on its 2016 Best Cities For Jobs, ranking, behind only San Francisco, San Jose and Orlando, and beating the likes of Dallas, Austin and Denver. The magazine's rankings are based on short-, medium- and long-term job creation, going back to '04, and factor in whether growth is slowing or accelerating.
Best Cities For Women-Owned Businesses: No. 1
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Entrepreneurship's critical to keep a local economy and its office market healthy. In the 21st century, female entrepreneurship is a critical component of the overall picture, and WalletHub found that Nashville is the top city for women starting their own companies, based on metrics such as percentage of women-owned businesses, their growth rates, number of employees, revenue and revenue growth rates, and more.
Millennial Entrepreneurs: No. 2
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Nashville also has the second-highest rate of young small-business owners. Business owners between the ages of 20 and 34 love us, and the city came in behind only Miami and ahead of Austin, Jacksonville and Portland, according to a recent Kauffman Foundation report. The foundation based its rate on companies between one and 50 employees that are five years old or older.
STEM Workers: No. 5
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For STEM workers, Nashville's a high-paying town: Fifth out of 54 metro areas, in fact. SmartAsset looked at 40 specific STEM jobs in three overarching STEM job categories as defined by the BLS: computer and mathematical occupations; architecture and engineering occupations; and life, physical and social science occupations. Average pay in STEM professions in Nashville was more than $63,200 in '15. Admittedly that's less than the No. 2 city, San Francisco, but for the price of a shoebox to live in there, you can get a pretty nice house here.
New Tech Grads: No. 5
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In a related metric, Nashville was also fifth on business research company DataFox's new ranking of the best cities for recent tech grads to find a job after graduating. The ranking is as based on mentorship and networking opportunities, affordability and growth potential.
No. 1 Destination Of The Year
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Music to the ears of hotel and restaurant owners (and some tourist attractions): Nashville topped 2015's Travel + Leisure readers' poll as Destination of the Year. And it was an international field: Nashville got almost double the votes of the No. 2 destination, Charleston, with Cuba coming in third with 6.5% of the votes. Other top picks included Greece, Iceland, Istanbul and Paris.
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