Fishers, Indiana

F I SHERS , INDI ANA 93,000 relatively affluent and well-educated people, according to its first and current mayor, Scott Fadness. “We build about 600 single-family homes a year and about 200 multi-family,” he reports. “Between those, I think it’s reasonable to think we’re growing by 1,000 to 1,400 people a year. So, we’ve seen quite a tremendous population growth here in our city. We are starting to plateau in some regards, but we think our final population will be somewhere between 125,000 and 140,000 people.” Fadness believes that the main reason for Fishers’ explosive growth lies in its character as “an innovative and very change-oriented community.” He remarks, “In the last decade, the city has gone through quite a transformation in regards to the creation and formation of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, as well as the creation of places and spaces that people want to come to. We have some of the most attractive locations in all of central Indiana, coupled with some pretty ambitious and aggressive public infrastructure investments that really set Fishers apart in a quality-of-life perspective.” “On the entrepreneurial front,” Fadness continues, “Fishers is home to the largest co- working space in the state, called Launch Fishers. It’s something that we founded nearly eight years ago, and we have lots of aspiring young entrepreneurs and young businesses in that location. We are also home to the only Internet of Things (IoT) lab in the State of Indiana. We also have Fishers Test Kitchen that is located in a $140-milion mixed-use development. It’s culinary-focused, and a place where aspiring chefs can pursue their entrepreneurial and culinary passions.” “All these things coalesce around this idea that we want to be a home for the innovator and the entrepreneur,” he adds. “And we’ve worked very diligently over the last five to six years trying to attract not only companies, but individuals who