CNN has once again ranked Indianapolis the most affordable place to live in America. Fishers and Carmel have received numerous similar awards in recent years, and Noblesville is sure to follow. Hamilton County is also the #1 healthiest county in the state, defined by "quality of life" and "health risks".
In the bustling Nickel Plate District of Fishers, Indiana, Tracy Gritters can recall a time when things looked very different. “It was a two-lane road 17 years ago,” she said of the property around her boutique store, Gallery 116 , where she has sold locally made goods since 2002. “We were worried about Target coming to town.” The retail giant eventually did — it's located about an 11-minute walk from her store — but the city's expansion hasn’t been the scenario she feared. Fishers, which was named MONEY's Best Place to Live in 2017 , officially upgraded from a town to a city and swore in its first mayor on January 1, 2015. Mayor Scott Faddness is still in office, and in the years since his inauguration, the city itself has been transformed. The newly developed downtown area became the Nickel Plate District , now home to an outdoor amphitheatre, plenty of retail stores and restaurants, a brewery, luxury apartments, and a high-speed internet coworking sp