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Southern Idaho’s Treasure Valley encompasses some of the state’s biggest cities, including the capital of Boise. From investments in outdoor recreation and green spaces to downtown revitalization and smart infrastructure improvements, Boise has cemented itself as an attractive, welcoming destination for Americans to call home.
“I think we’re Outdoor City USA,” said Carrie Westergard, executive director of Visit Boise, which is the tourism division for the city’s Metro Chamber of Commerce.
From July 2023 to July 2024, Idaho’s population as a state increased by around 30,500 people or 1.5 percent, making it the seventh fastest-growing state at the time, according to estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
What’s more, between 2014 and 2024, Boise and its surrounding bustling metropolitan area added over 150,000 residents — a population surge of almost 25 percent — as those newcomers flocked to enjoy the high quality of life, picturesque landscape, and abundant greenery offered by the City of Trees.
“The city of Boise is a welcoming place,” said Doug Holloway, director of parks and recreation for the City of Boise. “We want to be open arms to everybody, regardless of what your background is, where you’re from, what your religious beliefs are, political beliefs, gender — it doesn’t make any difference.
“We want you to feel like you’re welcome here in this community. That permeates through all of the departments within the city, and then, in turn, that filters out into the community and becomes part of our identity.”
Boise’s story cannot be written without highlighting the historical transformation of its downtown. In the mid-1970s, Boise native and writer L.J. Davis wrote an article for Harper’s magazine titled “Tearing Down Boise,” with the subhead ‘One day there may be nothing but a shopping center left of Boise, Idaho.’
The premise, according to Sean Keithly, director of economic development for the City of Boise, was if things continue as they were, Boise would become the first city in American history to deliberately eradicate itself. “That got people’s attention,” Keithly said.
Meanwhile, at the time, Boise’s downtown had “a series of auto lots and basically an expanse of nothing,” according to Keithly, while “much of downtown had been eradicated by the 1960s definition of urban renewal.”
Over the ensuing decade, however, there was a rethinking of what Boise could be, including some support for placing a mall in the center of downtown. Thankfully, though, the City of Trees — led by former Mayor Dirk Kempthorne and other civic leadership — abandoned the downtown mall, instead, opting to revitalize historic buildings, and eventually constructing a convention center, which opened in 1990.
Kempthorne wanted to make downtown Boise the heart of the city, complete with an outdoor venue called The Grove Plaza, restaurants, brick-and-mortar retail locations, and residential attractions. It was vital for Boise, according to Kempthorne, to have a vibrant and economically viable downtown, ultimately altering the trajectory of the city’s urban center.
Boise’s downtown resurgence featured private-public partnerships, business improvement district assessments, and state and federal grants. For example, through tax increment financing, Boise’s urban renewal district, which was managed by the Capital City Development Corporation and launched in the late 1980s, took the monies from increased property taxes in the district. In turn, those dollars were redirected toward improvements in streetscapes, sidewalks, parking garages, and other city amenities. Over a 30-year time span, the Capital City Development Corporation invested about $60 million in Boise’s downtown infrastructure.
“Our leadership in the city, our mayors, our councils in the past, were never afraid to invest in downtown and invest in what makes Boise such a unique place,” Holloway said.
Keithly said in the past five years, Boise has experienced about a 50 percent growth in the residential population downtown, where there’s an emphasis on streetscapes and non-motorized transportation. A new, 27-story mixed-use development features ground-floor retail, nearly 300 luxury residential units, and 360-degree views of Boise’s scenery, making it the largest residential tower in Idaho.
“It didn’t happen overnight,” Keithly said of Boise’s downtown renaissance. “This was decades in the making. It provided the basis for what we’re able to do now.”
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Within a five-minute walk of Boise’s downtown, residents can access 200-plus miles of walking trails. It’s part of the city’s 10-minute walking initiative, where all 100,000-plus households within the Boise limits are within a 10-minute walk of a park, open space, or a pathway connection that leads to one, according to Holloway.
Boise is nearing 75 percent of households that have walkable access to a park within a 10-minute window, though the goal isn’t necessarily time-sensitive. “It’s numbers sensitive,” he said. The last two parks purchased by the city were 1/4 acre in size, but the typical park sizes have traditionally been seven acres for neighborhoods, 20 acres for communities, and 50 acres or more for regional parks.
With space increasingly becoming more of a premium in Boise, the city is keen on locating and purchasing smaller-sized plots, in addition to an emphasis on finding spots for the aforementioned path connections.
Boise recently dedicated its first linear connection park that connects a 20-acre ranch to a 30-acre wetlands community, providing easy walkability between both locations. According to the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index, Boise’s park system sits at No. 19 in the country across the 100 largest U.S. cities.
“There’s always been a strong focus on quality of life as part of our city’s identity,” Keithly said.
“That vibrant, clean, safe downtown with a lot of unique, local identity is something that is very close to our heart here in Boise,” said Keithly, who added that it’s one key selling point for how the city attracts new businesses as well as residents to relocate to the metropolis.
In 2024, the Trust for Public Land released a study spotlighting five different U.S. cities, including Boise, that have “targeted their investments in parks to catalyze equitable economic growth and foster economic mobility.”
Workforce and talent development for Boise-based corporations and startups is currently one of the four key focus areas within the city’s economic development and strategy plan. Keithly called Boise “a hotbed” for startup and entrepreneurial activity.
Founded in the late 1970s, Micron Technology, a Boise-based semiconductor company, is set to open a $15 billion manufacturing facility in 2026, creating thousands of new jobs in the process. It’s the largest private economic investment in the state’s history, according to the Boise Valley Economic Partnership.
Locally-based Clearwater Analytics, a software-as-a-service financial technology company, has other offices in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong, among other domestic and overseas cities. Founded in 2004, the local firm has over 1,000 employees.
Meanwhile, Tracer AI, a local firm that started with fewer than 10 employees, now has 200-plus staffers and considers Meta a top client, according to Keithly. He touted the success of multiple other homegrown Boise technology businesses like Cradlepoint, which was acquired by the Swedish telecommunications corporation Ericsson in 2020.
Both Keithly and Holloway credited the city’s secondary educational system, including Boise State and the University of Idaho’s downtown campus, for enacting programs around semiconductors, microelectronics, advanced manufacturing, and various other developed and emerging technologies in order to support the local business community.
Keithly also pointed toward the College of Western Idaho, which is scheduled to open a Boise campus in late 2027, as it serves around 30,000 students in the career and technical education space. Keithly said he and his economic development team regularly highlight the area’s fertile talent pool when speaking with prospective companies. The message: We have the local workforce to assist with your company’s needs.
“It speaks to how we reflect the value that we have around being entrepreneurial and being agile,” Keithly said, “and really to be quick to rise to the occasion when those opportunities come up. We need to serve our businesses that are expanding and relocating here.”
