OnMilwaukee.com is a founding member of the MMAC's Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM). Now called Fuel Milwaukee, the organization has made great strides in positioning the region as a prime place for younger talent. It has done the little and big things necessary to recruit and retain people to the greater Milwaukee area.

As a founding Fuel Milwaukee member and a past president, it makes me proud to announce that forbes.com has ranked Milwaukee as the ninth best city in its "Best Cities For Young Professionals" list. We beat out such places as Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Forbes "ranked the country's 40 biggest metros on economic opportunity for up-and-coming young professionals to gauge which cities are attracting the next generation of top business talent." It adjusted its data for population. That way, said the magazine, "overachieving smaller cities like Milwaukee (ninth place), Austin, Texas (ninth) and Minneapolis (fifth) can hang with behemoths like New York (fourth) or Chicago (sixth)."

Here's what it said about Milwaukee:

Milwaukee might not be a leading innovator, but it has the fifth-highest concentration of top companies in the country, by our count. And those jobs pay. Despite a below-average cost of living, salaries paid to professionals are comfortably above the national average, at $54,169. Sweetening the deal further, the city is in the top quartile for its population of never-married citizens between 20 and 35.

On June 30, the Milwaukee region claimed two of the top 10 spots as Forbes declared Ozaukee and Waukesha counties as No. 2 and No. 8 Best Places in the U.S. to raise a family. Forbes stated that all of the counties on its Top 20 list earned "high marks for their low cost of living, reasonably priced homes and short commute times."