Comparing life in New England cities

April 27, 2014 10:47 AM

I am trying to compare several New England cities to help my employer decide where to re-locate his business. Most of the categories are quantitative and no trouble to research, but I am also trying to find a way to rate these more qualitative features: culture/entertainment/nightlife that would appeal to recent college graduates starting a career in marketing research; tax breaks, grant and other government incentives available to a business providing professional services. Any suggestions on how to shape a couple of hours of research time on each category that might result in a fairly simple apples-to-apples rating across 7 different localities would be really helpful.
posted by layceepee to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

For tax breaks / grants / government incentives, aren't cities' Chambers of Commerce created to tell people like you about such things? Or is this not apples-to-applesy enough?

As for college grad appeal, I'm not so sure. I would suggest walkscore as proxy for quality of life, but that's my bias (walkable = high quality of life).
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:27 PM on April 27, 2014

Many cities in New England have colleges/universities. There might be data on which cities retain the greatest percentage of their recent grad population.
posted by ifandonlyif at 1:42 PM on April 27, 2014

Four Square, Yelp, Urban Spoon, etc could be useful in mining places that appeal to college graduates. You could rate by availability, access, overall feedback, etc. For example, number of coffee shops + ease of parking, public transport, walking + review ratings, etc. Activity on these websites (i.e., number of reviews or discussions) could also be an indicator. Yelp has a tag for places that appeal to twenty-somethings.
posted by inevitability at 1:46 PM on April 27, 2014

City-Data has many city-specific forums for exactly the type of qualitative questions you have.
posted by Seeking Direction at 2:27 PM on April 27, 2014