Great things are happening in Ellis County!
Did you know that Hays is the place to conduct business, achieve an excellent education, take advantage of cutting-edge medical technologies, raise a family, retire with your friends, or just enjoy in a community with country values mixed with urban amenities? Hays provides all this and more to over 20,000 residents everyday!
The Progressive Farmer magazine crowns Ellis County, Kansas 2nd best rural area to live!
The Progressive Farmer magazine crowns Ellis County, Kansas and nine other best rural places to live based on their ability to thrive, even during struggles, among other quality-of-life statistics.
Ellis County in Kansas was awarded one of the top honors in the fourth annual edition of the “Best Places to Live in Rural America” rankings by The Progressive Farmer magazine. Each year, the rankings name the top 10 rural counties in the nation according to several quality-of-life indicators and statistics; all 10 counties are profiled in the February 2007 issue of The Progressive Farmer and the top 500 rural counties are listed on the magazine’s website (www.progressivefarmer.com).
The top 10 rural counties are ranked based on rural quality-of-life indicators such as great schools, access to health care, low crime and affordable farmland. In 2008, the editors of The Progressive Farmer added extra criteria by focusing on counties that have been able to protect farmland, control growth pressure from urban and suburban areas, and strike a good balance between agriculture, manufacturing and modern conveniences.
No. 2 Ellis County is known for its frontier spirit with agriculture and oil sustaining its economy. Like many agricultural areas, Ellis County saw hard times in the 1980s, but has since revitalized the area by forming a coalition to ensure economic vitality.
“It would have been easy for community leaders to give up during the tough times of the 1980s,” says Senior Editor Gregg Hillyer, who visited the county for the magazine. “But they banded together and went to work to improve the region’s economic fortunes and to enhance the quality of life for everyone.”
“This year, we wanted to celebrate the people that make the places special,” says Senior Editor Jamie Cole. “We want to show what they’re doing to keep their rural counties rural. We hope other places—small towns, counties, rural areas—that face these same challenges can find ideas through our list.”
Hays Named One of Nation’s Top Places To Live
A study conducted by BizJournals, a division of American City Business Journals, has named Hays one of the top small communities in the country in which to live. Hays ranked third in the Journal’s list of ten leading micropolitan areas in the Midwest region and ranked 14th overall with a quality of life score based on 12 separate indicators in August, 2006.
Micropolitan areas, according to G. Scott Thomas’ article published Monday on the Bizjournals website, are “…smaller than metropolitan areas. Each micropolitan area consists of a county or cluster of counties that are economically dependent on a central city, town or village with 10,000 to 50,000 residents.”
The study examined life in each of the nation’s 577 micropolitan areas and rated the areas in categories including Population Growth, Income Growth, Per Capita Income, Small Business Growth, Small Business Concentration, Management or Professional Jobs and Ease of Commuting. Affordable Housing, Low Taxation, College Degrees, Advanced Degrees and Proximity to Major Metropolitan Areas rounded out the 12 criteria.
“It’s wonderful to see empirical data to show the rest of the country what we’ve always known,” said Ellis County Economic Development Director Mike Michealis. “We believe, based on the criteria used to examine these micropolitan areas, that Hays holds great opportunities for entrepreneurs and larger employers alike to bring business and workers to our community.”
“This ranking can only benefit Hays and the surrounding area,” said Gina Riedel, Executive Director of the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce. “It shows people across the nation that there are great things happening in Western Kansas.”
In his article, Thomas stated the study “was inspired by the heavy public interest in small-town life and business opportunities. More than 1.7 million people move from metropolitan areas to small cities or rural counties each year, according to U.S. Census Bureau research.”
“We really do have the perfect blend of big city life and small town hospitality in the Hays area and this is highly beneficial to those looking to make the move to a smaller community,” Riedel said. “With a quality education system, arts scene, public safety record and a strong economy, as well as our location along Interstate 70, our community is the ideal place to start a business, raise a family or retire.”
According to Thomas, “the raw data used in Bizjournals' study comes from two federal agencies, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. All of the figures are the latest, most comprehensive statistics available at the micropolitan level.”