The city of Brookings is listed by Livability.com as one of the top ten best small towns to live in the United States. Livability started with a top 500 places to live category and eventually broke off into best small towns.
Brookings South Dakota is listed number five in the top ten list by Livability of best small towns to live. Brookings Mayor Tim Reed says he didn’t realize the city was on the list until after Livability had decided. He says the announcement came as a shock to many.
"Well we’re real excited when we were notified of being named to that top 10 list and mostly coming in at number five. There’s a lot of great cities that were included in that list and it was really just kind of a, big surprise," Reed says.
Some of the other cities on the top 10 list were Oxford Mississippi, Rock Springs Wyoming, Oak Harbor Washington and Alexandria Minnesota. Mayor Reed says there are a few things that went into the decision making for the top 10 list.
"When they sent the announcement to us they let us know several different things that they thought was important. And that had to do with economic growth, city growth, and then trail systems and also something I thought was really unique is that they thought the historical; the way that the Brookings community embraces keeping the history of our neighborhoods and such," Reed says.
Reed says the award shows how much hard work goes into every day decisions within the city. He says South Dakota State has only helped the situation of Brookings growth.
"I’m sure that the University plays a big part, it’s really a little less than half of our town. I always like to say we’re more than an university town because we are an university town. So as we look at what we want this city to become, we’ve taken the university as one of our large assets if it’s how can it help us become what we want to be," Reed says.
Mayor Reed says the community of Brookings plans to continue looking at ways to improve the community. He says listening to the public and what they want helps with decision making and future plans for growth.