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This is the Milken Institute's list of Best Performing Small Cities for 2014 utilizing criteria such as GDP, unemployment rates and wage/job growth. Nice to see some that aren't related to oil exploration which is a pleasant surprise.
Top 10 best-performing small cities
RANK ACCORDING TO 2014 INDEX
Metropolitan statistical area (MSA) 2014 rank 2013 rank
Fargo, ND-MN 1 3
Columbus, IN 2 2
Victoria, TX 3 16
Bismarck, ND 4 4
Iowa City, IA 5 15
Midland, TX 6 5
Morgantown, WV 7 9
College Station-Bryan, TX 8 38
Greenville, NC 9 13
Auburn-Opelika, AL 10 37
Just curious as to how they manage to classify Columbus as a small city. It's got more people than Boston, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Charlotte, Minneapolis or Washington DC.
The fate of the oil patch cities is dependent on oil prices so their prospects may be fading now, but could come back as oil prices rebound. The college towns may continue to grown and prosper because of a solid base for the local economy composed of educational spending. But I wonder how this list would look and who would be on it if they spescifically excluded oil cities and college towns.
Just curious as to how they manage to classify Columbus as a small city. It's got more people than Boston, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Charlotte, Minneapolis or Washington DC.
Ah, yes. Read too quickly. And that is the only city on this list whose economy isn't education-based or oil-based, with Cummins Engine headquartered there.
Interesting, all the cities are in the south, except for the Oil towns and Columbus.
That's odd, the way I'm looking at it 4 of the top 5 are in the Midwest
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