Quote:
Originally Posted by rowhomecity
Clearly you have never been to Allentown or at least not in 15+ years.
Allentown won the national urban renewal reward in 2018 and has seen over $1 Billion in new development in its downtown over the last few years. Here is a link. https://lehighvalley.org/downtown-al...rd-excellence/
The area is growing rapidly and has taken advantage of its geographic proximity to both Philadelphia and NYC and has a large array of Universities and invested in the Ed’s and Meds economy.
And as another poster pointed out with facts:
The Lehigh Valley has a larger economy than ALBQ.
The Lehigh Valley has a higher median income than ALBQ.
The Lehigh Valley has more wealth than ALBQ.
Those links from .gov sites were posted further up this thread. |
Those facts are based entirely off of estimates. I find it laughable that you're so willing to accept those facts put out by government agencies but not the facts which show Allentown as being a slow-growing place with a population less than 850,000 people.
I completely accept and know that estimates can be wrong, but it's all we have to go by and all that matters. But you also need to accept that those estimates besides population that you're so willing to accept in order to gloat over Albuquerque may also be wrong.
Albuquerque could actually have a larger economy than Allentown, and higher incomes. The margin of error is certainly much more realistic in those estimates for that to be the case than for Allentown to have grown by 300,000 people over the last decade. Allentown isn't leading Albuquerque by many billions in GDP or income. It doesn't have an incredible or insurmountable lead in either of those measures.
Besides, Albuquerque's median income grew by over 12 percent in the latest measure. And its metro GDP by over 4 percent. It absolutely could be ahead by now and when the next estimates are released.
https://www.deptofnumbers.com/income...o/albuquerque/
https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-cou...nd-other-areas
Albuquerque absolutely does have a dynamic economy that is growing even during the pandemic. We are a leader in solar technology and startups. One of our local solar companies played a big role in the recent Ingenuity helicopter flight on Mars. SolAero Technologies designed and built the solar panel which powered the flight.
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...rs-flight.html
Another solar company founded in Albuquerque went public last year and raised over $1.2 billion in its IPO, one of the biggest for a new energy company. That helped make its founder New Mexico's first billionaire. The IPO gave Array Technologies a valuation of $2.8 billion and a market cap of $4.6 billion. It ended 2020 with revenue up 35 percent.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ar...ice-2020-10-15
https://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...ar-ipo-of-2020
https://www.abqjournal.com/2369517/a...5-in-2020.html
Albuquerque's aerospace industry is also on fire right now with multiple success stories and big projects. The largest project right now is the Orion Center. It's a massive project that will involve building over 5.5 million sq ft of structures at the Albuquerque Sunport and create 2,575 high-paying jobs in the city, along with thousands of construction jobs while it is being built. The project will build a network of 112 global imaging satellites that will be the highest resolution ever available. The overall project is estimated by Forbes to cost $13 billion. They also named it as one of the four top global strategic infrastructure projects. The city and Theia Group recently finalized the deal which will bring the project to fruition and Theia Group has begun hiring in the city and operating out of 200,000 sq ft of temporary space while its permanent facilities are built. Construction on those facilities are expected to begin in the summer.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/normana...h=2c29367aaf3d
https://www.abqjournal.com/2376258/s...pus-lease.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...agreement.html
Albuquerque is also currently seeing construction and jobs projects by Jabil and Kairos Power. Jabil is building its $42 million 3D Center of Excellence near the airport to manufacture medical devices. Kairos Power is building a $125 million research and development facility just down the road from Jabil on Mesa del Sol. Both projects together will create 185 high-paying jobs in the city.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1354340/j...ng-in-abq.html
https://www.cabq.gov/economicdevelop...lopment-center
RS21 in the last year was named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. It's in the middle of more than doubling its workforce and space in the historic Occidental Life Insurance building downtown. It has played an important role in analyzing and tracking trends of the Coronavirus. Albuquerque also has several other local start-ups and companies working on several aspects of combating the virus, including Build With Robots, which built a successful robot that cleans and sanitizes workspaces and commercial buildings. It also is located in Downtown Albuquerque and will also greatly expand its workforce and workspace downtown in the Innovation District near Innovate ABQ.
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...5000-list.html
https://www.prweb.com/releases/the_s...eb17841690.htm
https://www.abqjournal.com/2369075/l...ts-expand.html
Facebook recently announced that it will double its data center investment in Los Lunas and the project will now be a $6.6 billion total investment, with at least 400 permanent high-paying jobs created plus about 1,200 construction jobs on the site for the foreseeable future. Netflix also announced that it will double its investment in Albuquerque and expand Albuquerque Studios by adding ten new soundstages, greatly expand the backlot, build a 120,000 sq ft office building and more. All in all Netflix will spend $500 million on capital projects and over $2 billion on productions here. It will employ over 2,000 people for the productions and the construction projects will create nearly 1,500 construction jobs for several years.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1520539/n...on-in-abq.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...-approval.html
https://www.krqe.com/news/business/l...k-data-center/
Besides all this Albuquerque is also a logistics hub and has plenty of those kinds of projects going on, including by Amazon, FedEx, Ben E. Keith, Shamrock Foods, etc. These logistics projects and facilities total about 4 million sq ft of new building space and represent thousands of new jobs as well.
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...-presence.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...warehouse.html
Other recent big jobs announcements and expansions are Fidelity Investments with 535 total new jobs created in the last year, as well as Intel adding over 760 new jobs at its site in Rio Rancho and investing hundreds of millions at the site over the last three years. And one of the biggest jobs creation projects recently was Sandia National Labs' huge expansion in 2019 which added 1,900 jobs. Sandia has added over 2,700 jobs in the city since 2017.
https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news...-goal/5602065/
https://www.abqjournal.com/2379400/i...nnovation.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer...buquerque.html
All this points to a dynamic and diversified economy that the city is building in recent years. Yet people are still trying to trash Albuquerque and characterize it as something that it is not.
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