• The Milken Institute named Fort Myers-Cape Coral best performing city in the nation for job growth in their 2004 survey of "Best Performing Cities: Where America's Jobs are Created."
  
  
• According to the US Census an average of 20,700 people move to Lee County annually, adding an estimated 11,400 people to the labor pool.
  
  
• Southwest Florida International Airport is the 8th fastest-growing airport in the country and is currently undergoing a $438 million expansion.
  
  
• National site consultants ranked the telecommunications infrastructure in Lee County as one of the top five markets in the U.S.
  
  
• Southwest Florida's 18-24 year old population (those available to enter the workforce) is growing at a much faster rate than those of the State of Florida and the U.S.

Consumers Digest Magazine has named Florida Gulf Coast University No. 11 among the top 50 best values for public colleges and universities in the Nation.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Lee County Florida was the sixth highest county in the nation for job growth between September 2003 and September 2004.

INC Magazine ranked Fort Myers-Cape Coral 9th among it's top 25 medium metropolitan cities for entrepreneurs. (2005)       

Forbes Magazine ranked Ft. Myers-Cape Coral 2nd among the top 150 cities for job growth. (2005)

Expansion Magazine named Lee County a four-star community in its annual quality of life scorecard for 2003.

U.S. Housing Markets ranked Ft. Myers - Cape Coral as the number one housing market in a metropolitan area in the nation for 2003 and 2004.

Money Magazine has selected Ft. Myers - Cape Coral as the 6th Best Place to live in America out of the 300 biggest metro areas in the United States.    

Edison Community College has been named as one of the top 25 community colleges in the United States by Community College Week magazine in 2003.

Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), Florida's tenth state-university opened in August of 1997 and now offers 37 undergraduate and 20 graduate programs in the areas of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, Health Professions and Professional Studies. They have been the fastest growing university in Florida for the past three years and continue to add new programs including the Bachelor of Biotechnology program added in 2003.

Forecast magazine lists Ft. Myers - Cape Coral 15th in its "Booming 25" ranking of the 25 fastest growing metro areas through the year 2005.

According to the National Golf  Foundation, Ft. Myers ranks 5th in the nation for golfer-to-holes ratios.Fort Myers High School was ranked among the 100 best high schools in the nation for both 2003 and 2004 by Newsweek magazine.

The Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program, a local private sector program designed to honor teaching excellence, is now being emulated nationally.

The crime rate for Lee County (crimes per 100,000 people) is among the lowest (4,529) of Florida's major metropolitan areas according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.