Money Magazine, a national financial magazine, ranked the City of Franklin among the top 100 cities to live in America, ranking 94th. Based on small towns with populations under 50,000, cities were ranked on qualities most important to the American family—not too expensive, great job opportunities, top-notch schools, safe streets, economic strength, good health care, and more.
With Northwestern Mutual’s International Headquarters being based in Franklin, the close proximity of Franklin to four major highways, its good schools, and its 35 square miles for plenty of room to spread out were just some of the highlights that bestowed Franklin as being ranked among the “best places to live”! The complete Money Magazine Article “America’s Best Places to Live” can be viewed here.
The City of Franklin’s website, Franklinwi.gov, has been recognized by Juggle.com as one of the top City government websites in the State of Wisconsin for its excellence in web design and content. After reviewing 3,000+ government portals, Franklin’s website was chosen for its “impressively rich information, useful services, and excellent visual design”.
Juggle.com is a search engine that provides factual information on hundreds of thousands of the web’s most popular topics and products by assessing and combining facts and information from the most trusted sources on the web to create a complete information set on each product and topic in their database.
Read the award feature here, which includes text of a brief interview with the Director of Administration on the management and content of the City’s website.
The Public Policy Forum recognized Franklin and Oak Creek for their collaborative work on the South 27th Street Corridor Project as part of its "Salute to Local Government" awards banquet held June 19, 2008. Both cities were awarded an Honorable Mention in the Intergovernmental Cooperation category, which recognizes partnerships between governmental bodies.
"The South 27th Street Corridor is a monumental cooperative effort between Franklin and Oak Creek and it is estimated to bring $2 billion in economic growth to our two cities," said Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor. "We are very grateful for this recognition."
Oak Creek Mayor Dick Bolender echoed this sentiment, "We are proud of this honor for our efforts. This project will grow our tax base, bring family-supporting jobs, and improve the quality of life for our residents."
Last year, Franklin and Oak Creek jointly received the 2007 Wisconsin Good Government Award for their cooperative planning efforts to prepare the South 27th Street Corridor for high-quality business development.
The Cities of Franklin and Oak Creek were named winners of the 2007 Wisconsin Good Government Award for the cooperative planning efforts in developing the South 27th Street Corridor, the 6-mile stretch that forms the border between Franklin and Oak Creek.
Sponsored by Foth, a Wisconsin-based consulting engineering firm, the Wisconsin Good Government Award program recognizes outstanding examples of intergovernmental cooperation and local government cost saving efforts throughout the state.
According to the judging panel, "This is how planning should be done. This is probably the most comprehensive, well-conceived approach to community planning we have reviewed. Not just good government, but good sense. Really forward thinking."
The Good Government Award was presented to the Mayors of both Cities on October 5, 2007 at the Annual League of Wisconsin Municipalities Conference. The Award also entails a $1,000 Community Enhancement Grant for each community, which was presented to the City of Franklin at the Common Council meeting of November 6, 2007.
An article in the April/May 2007 issue of the Foreign Direct Investment (fDi) magazine designates Franklin, Wisconsin, as a "City of the Future"! fDi is an international magazine published by the Financial Times of London. Franklin was invited, along with a total of 108 other cities across North America, to answer 60 or more questions in 7 categories. The cities, categorized by size, were scored by a panel of judges on a variety of criteria including Economic Potential, Cost Effectiveness, Human Resources, Quality of Life, Infrastructure, and Business Friendliness. Franklin was included in the "Micro cities with a population of less than 100,000" group and ranked in the following categories:
Franklin's Economic Resource Guide Franklin's Economic Profile Forward Franklin Economic Dev. Comm. City's Development Process The Milwaukee Business Journal