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Huntington MSA rated as the Best City for Surgeons
This is a year and a half old but still pretty cool:
Quote:
1. Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY
The metro area of Huntington, WV, and Ashland, Kentucky, is the best city for surgeons to practice in ValuePenguin's study. Huntington, the 2nd largest city in West Virginia, and Ashland, the 5th largest metro area in Kentucky, scored well in all categories to take the top spot for surgeons. There are twice as many surgeons in this area employed at clinics and top hospitals such as Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary's Medical Center, and King's Daughters Medical Center. With outdoor areas such as Beech Fork Lake and Ritter Park in Huntington, and Central Park and the Paramount Theater in Ashland, this metropolitan area has a multitude of afterwork attractions for relocated professionals. The metro area has the lowest cost of living index of 85 on our top 20 list, and the average salary for surgeons here is $251,980.
Huntington MSA Ranks 12th out of 244 MSAs for Economic Dynamism
From the City of Huntington Facebook page:
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The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has created a "Small City Economic Dynamism Index" that ranks small U.S. cities across 14 indicators of economic dynamism in four categories: demographics, economics, human capital, and infrastructure.
The Huntington-Ashland metro area ranked 12th out of 244 cities that were analyzed. Click on the link below for more detailed information.
This is good, but if you look at the data, it's pretty clear that the "dynamism" was due to the reclassification that led to the Huntington metro gaining Putnam County and Charleston losing it. We clearly did not have that much population growth, and I'm willing to bet that the majority of economic change stems from that. I'd like to see what the numbers would look like with the same base geographic area for the duration of this study.
There may be some truth to that but fortunately/unfortunately this is how outside interests look at us is on paper. The area is showing some good growth so when combined with things like this, it might help garner a little more attention and growth.
Does this study use the government definition of the MSAs?
Yes it does. According to the Data, Definitions, and Sources:
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Drawing from the literature on small-city sizes and types, this inquiry focuses on small-city metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with populations of less than 500,000 and where a principal city within the MSA has a population of at least 50,000. With these criteria, we extracted data on 255 MSAs, using data from the 2012 U.S. Census Bureau. Eleven MSAs were eliminated from the analysis due to random missing data points from our main sources, resulting in a dataset of 244 small-city MSAs.
Indicators of economic dynamism in small cities are linked to variables for which data are available at the geographic level and across the time frame required for analysis. Fourteen indicators are drawn from various sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns, and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The geographic level indicates the geographic area from which the data have been drawn.
If you look at a comparison of Huntington and Charleston, which gained and lost Putnam County, respectively, you can infer the switch as being the culprit. A lot of the per capita rates were similar, but from 2012-2013, a one year span, the Charleston MSA supposedly lost 25.6% of its population. Over that same year, Huntington appeared to gain 27% in population. As population change was one of their important dynamism metrics, that's where you get the huge disparity.
Some of the other data comes across as pretty interesting, though, when analyzing other economic factors. Though Charleston and Huntington lost/gained 26-27% of their populations, the building permits reflect something rather surprising. Over that one year, Charleston had a 4% decrease in building permits issued, but instead of Huntington having a 4% increase or thereabouts, we had a 65% increase. Over the course of eight years, Charleston had a decrease of 48%, but Huntington had an increase of 16%. That, to me, indicates that while losing Putnam County hurts Charleston, they were already declining over that time span (and actually appeared to weather that loss quite well, in context). Huntington, meanwhile, already had some modest gains but was well buffeted by the inclusion of Putnam County.
And, regardless, Tim is right. Most people will take the distinction at face value. And any good publicity for our city is much appreciated.
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Huntington MSA rated as the Best City for Surgeons
