Yesterday, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance unveiled their Top Ten Cities for the Next Decade list, on which Topeka ranked tenth in the nation, but even more telling of the city’s success are some of the statistics they used to determine their rankings.

Research conducted by Kiplinger and the Martin Prosperity Institute, ranked Topeka 17th in the nation, and first among Kiplinger’s top ten cities, in its percentage of workforce in the “Creative Class.” The study puts 37% of Topeka’s working population with jobs in the creative class, which includes scientists, engineers, educators, writers, artists, entertainers and others who “inject both economic and cultural vitality into a city and help make it a vibrant place to live,” according to the magazine.

The magazine’s research also listed Topeka as 26th in the nation, and first among Kiplinger’s top ten cities, in cost of living. The index, in which average cost of living is a score of 100, gives Topeka a score of 88. Cost of living factors in several aspects, from prices of housing to commodities such as gas and groceries.

“While this is an incredible honor and wonderful news, it comes as no surprise to us at all. We’ve long touted Topeka as an innovative, vibrant community, and it’s fantastic to see others outside the city recognizing it,” said Doug Kinsinger, president and CEO of the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce. “A lot of that credit is due to the highly-involved organizations within the Topeka and Shawnee County community, as well as the fantastic corporations who set up here.”

A podcast accompanying the Kiplinger’s story talks about how the city selection process was conducted, and how the top ten communities aren’t simply doing the right things now, but the things that will keep them successful in the future. The kind of factors they looked at included if a city had a “low barrier of entry,” where people felt it was easy to get involved and fit in; if the community had interesting, creative, innovative things happening within it; and collaboration between local government, business and educational organizations.

“A lot of these places that we discovered among our top places, they all have this grassroots, cooperative effort that is noticeably lacking in other places,” Senior Editor Bob Frick says in the podcast.

On Kiplinger’s website, each of the top ten cities is profiled, with a video accompanying each city. In its first day on the site, Topeka’s video proved surprisingly popular.

“On Wednesday, the day the Best Cities package launched on Kiplinger.com, Topeka’s video had 4,063 plays. It surpassed the number of video plays for Austin, the number one city on the list,” said Kathryn Walson, the Kiplinger’s author who wrote about Topeka.

The complete story will be in the July issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, on newsstands June 8. Visit kiplinger.com to read stories, watch the videos and vote for Topeka on Facebook.

[press release courtesy Topeka Chamber | Photo by Leah Sewell | May 2010]