Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocation Name
2005's Best Cities for Relocating Families
Worldwide ERC® and Primacy Relocation recently announced that Washington, D.C.; Boulder, Colorado; and Athens, Georgia, are 2005's Best Cities for Relocating Families™ among large, medium and small U.S. metropolitan areas. The two organizations worked with Bert Sperling of Sperling's BestPlaces to rate cities based on those factors - short-term and long-term - that determine the likelihood of a successful relocation.
The results changed from last year's study when Sperling and Primacy's research team broadened their definition of the American family to include elder-care and assisted-living statistics from the federal Administration on Aging. Every year, research shows that transferees place an increasing priority on finding safe and meaningful care for their aging parents.
Worldwide ERC Executive Vice President H. Cris Collie, CAE said, "Relocations occur for business reasons, but more and more often, they succeed because of a combination of family needs that are met."
The study lists the top 50 U.S. cities in their population categories, based in part on indicators familiar to all city rankings, such as cost of living, taxes, home costs/appreciation, schools, and climate. The rankings also consider criteria often overlooked, but helpful to have, once a family actually moves to one of these "best cities."
"Even the best relocation benefit programs can't ease all the burden of bureaucratic hassles and unexpected fees," said Primacy CEO Matt Spinolo. "So we factored in such elements as commute times, and out-of-state tuition rules at local universities--and now we take a close look at how well each state monitors long-term care facilities."
ERC and Primacy announced the results of the survey at the National Relocation Conference in San Diego. Full results of the survey are available at www.primacy.com and will be published in MOBILITY magazine this summer.
Worldwide ERC® provides leadership, advocacy, education and networking to global workforce mobility professionals and stakeholders through specialized training, credentialing, meeting events and information exchange. Formed in 1964 and with offices in Washington, DC and Brussels, Belgium, Worldwide ERC®'s programs and publications help its more than 12,000 members continually increase their expertise in global mobility and relocation issues, and allow corporations moving employees (and the companies that provide services to them) to communicate more effectively and to conduct transfers more efficiently. Visit ERC at www.erc.org.
Primacy Relocation is a full-service relocation provider, addressing both U.S.-based and global needs for companies around the world, including home sales, destination services, household goods move management, program administration, and international assignment (expatriate) support. In addition to its Memphis headquarters, Primacy has offices in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Omaha, Sacramento and Washington, D.C.; as well as Basel, Geneva, Lausanne, London, Montreal, Munich, Neuchatel, Shanghai and Zurich. Primacy is online (in eight languages) at www.primacy.com
