Boise has access to everything you could want. Great hospitals, an international airport, a fun selection of restaurants, thriving local businesses, community events, Boise State University and all the big box stores you could want. The first thing you'll hear about why people move to Boise is its excellent access to natural beauty. If you're a nature lover, Boise is a great place to live.
During the winter, there is a Bogus Basin for all your winter recreation, the foothills for unstoppable hiking and mountain biking, and the great Boise River that flows through the city for tubing, kayaking and fishing. Boise has made a name for itself in the region as a cultural center for jazzy music and theater. Every spring, the city hosts the Gene Harris JazzFestival, a popular festival honoring the city's most legendary jazzy musician, Gene Harris. Meanwhile, many theater groups have established a place for themselves in Boise and perform at the Boise Little Theater, the Boise Contemporary Theater and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.
The 208 Comedy Fest attracts nationally renowned comedians every year. Boise can boast a low unemployment rate of 2.9%, which is 1.5% lower than the national average. The Wall Street Journal recently praised Boise for having one of the fastest-growing labor markets in the country. Part of this success can be attributed to the state's growing technology presence, which includes employers such as Micron Technology, Inc.
Despite this growing technological trend, Boise's most important industries remain in healthcare and hospitality. Alphonsus Health Systems employs many Boise residents. Livability explores what makes small and medium-sized cities great places to live. Through proprietary research studies, interesting articles, and original photographs and videos, we examine topics related to community services, education, sustainability, transportation, housing and the economy.
We then leveraged that experience to develop city rankings for a variety of topics, including small towns, college towns, and our 100 best places to live. While it was a big adjustment moving to Boise, which has a population of around 228,000 compared to Boise's nearly four million Los Angeles, it has far exceeded its expectations in terms of quality of life, Marshall told me. Located on the banks of the Boise River, Boise State University (BSU) offers more than 200 fields of study with excellent nursing, computer science and engineering programs. As a beneficiary of the many corporations that made Boise great in the mid-20th century, Boise Parks & Recreation has a system of riverside parks, all linked by the 25-mile-long park that gives runners, walkers, cyclists, fishermen, birdwatchers, all a place to access the waterfront area.
With median home prices in Boise nearly half, it's no surprise that Californians who want to enjoy homeownership are moving to Boise. Ryan Miller, a 28-year-old from the Los Angeles area, first came to Boise for college, spending her last two years of undergraduate studies at Boise State University. On a four-day trip to Boise for Business Insider last November, I spoke to three millennials who gave up their lives in a big California city to move to Boise. Spend summers on the Boise River kayaking and whitewater rafting along the Boise River Green Belt.
Boise State University is also located here and awards more undergraduate degrees than any other university in the state of Idaho.
