In our quest to find the factors making start up ecosystems in Austin and Boulder thrive, I couldn’t help but notice how ‘quality of life’ kept on being mentioned by almost everyone we visited. Almost all the entrepreneurs who had moved to these areas said that the quality of life is what attracted them there.Which leads to a very important question. How does quality of life affect a start up community? I shall talk about what I think quality of life refers to and how it affects the communities in Austin and Boulder based on what I saw.
Quality of life refers to the general well being of individuals and societies. Standard indicators of the quality of life include not only wealth and employment but also the built environment, physical and mental health, education, recreation and leisure time, and social belonging. I believe what people were referring to was the engaged theory. The engaged theory has four domains in assessing quality of life: ecology, economics, politics and culture. I shall focus more on culture in Austin and Boulder.
Boulder had this identity of being collaborative and inclusive. There is a pay it forward mentality and action oriented mentality in Boulder too. Not only is creativity encouraged but there is also diversity of thoughts and ideas. The mountainous and scenic views encourage outdoor activities like hiking and so on. Actually Colorado is recognized as having the least obese people in the US. All these factors that define the culture of Boulder make it a place people want to live in. George, a former Western Michigan University student now living in Denver said that although it is not cheap to live in the area, people still want to live here because of the quality of life and economics.
Austin on the other hand is known as the ‘Live Music Capital of the World’. Austin is a way bigger city so naturally there is a lot of going on. The arts are very vibrant and play a huge role within the community. Also diversity of people and thoughts is present in Austin. Austin has great music, great outdoors and great cafes. Ken Cho, co-founder of People Pattern and serial entrepreneur based in Austin, also mentioned that quality of life is what drew him to Austin and would not imagine living anywhere else.
If an area provides great quality of life and has the factors mentioned above then it will attract people (talent). On average 110 people move to Austin every single day. That’s incredible! So all great entrepreneurs and resources are attracted to areas with environments that are conducive to them thriving i.e areas that have better quality of life. It’s also important to note that not only does quality of life attract talent but it also retains it. So it is very unlikely for people to move to other areas if they already live in areas with good quality of life. On our trip to Austin and Boulder we could not help but notice how there was such a huge sense of pride for the cities they lived in. Everybody spoke so highly of the areas they lived in and we never heard people in Austin say bad things of the people in Boulder or vice versa.
With that being said, us people from Kalamazoo need to find what identifies us as a city. We need to work on making Kalamazoo a place people want to live in and therefore attract talent. We need to tell people outside of the good life in Kalamazoo!
