The Milken Institute recently released Best-Performing Cities 2012-Where America’s Jobs are Created and Sustained. Coloradans will be pleased to note that Fort Collins was ranked 12th and Boulder was ranked 15th in 2011. As well, Denver-Aurora-Broomfield was 30th, Greeley was 42nd and Colorado Springs was 57th. Pueblo was ranked 33rd and Grand Junction 50th for small MSAs. Since the ratings began in 1999, the Denver MSA has never been in the top 20.
The rankings are based on an index that measures growth in jobs and high tech output from 2006 to 2011. Technology output and wages and salaries are tracked for 2005 to 2010. Five-year ranges account for fluctuation in business cycles. The latest year’s growth from these five-year ranges is also included. The high-tech concentration and the number of high tech industries with a location quotient greater than one for 2011 are also included. Finally, the change in employment for May 2011 to May 2012 is included to capture momentum. This index measures the performance of the country’s MSAs coming out of the recession into 2012.
Overall, the report shows that Silicon Valley is back, Texas remains strong, tech centers have rebounded (Texas, North Carolina, Washington D.C. Utah, and Massachusetts), and Utah is the top state in the Mountain region.
1 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
2 Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX
3 Raleigh-Cary, NC
4 Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
5 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
6 Salt Lake City, UT
7 Provo-Orem, UT
8 Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, MA
9 Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, SC
10 Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
11 New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NJ
12 Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
13 Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
14 Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX
15 Boulder, CO
16 Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, WA
17 Peabody, MA
18 El Paso, TX
19 Bakersfield-Delano, CA
20 Lubbock, TX
21 Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
22 San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX
23 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA
24 Lafayette, LA
25 Knoxville, TN
In addition to the report, the website provides a historic perspective showing the evolution of the top 20 cities for 1999 to 2011. In the table below, the year represents the year of the data, not the year of the report. Results for the Four Corners states show that the Denver MSA was never in the top 20 and Utah’s MSAs outshined those in Colorado. The data makes the case that the four states represent a region with solid economic performance.
©Copyright 2011 by CBER.