10 Growth Cities Small Business Owners Should Know About

By Rieva Lesonsky

What U.S. cities are poised to grow and prosper in the next decade? That’s the question the site NewGeography.com set out to answer when it partnered with the Praxis Strategy Group to come up with its ranking of the next “boom towns” in the U.S.

The study took the 52 largest metro areas in the country (that is, those with populations of more than 1 million) and ranked them based on data that indicate past, present and future vitality. Here are the factors the researchers assessed:

Job growth was the primary factor considered. In addition to looking at job growth in the past decade, the study focused in particular on growth within the past two years in order “to account for the possible long-term effects of the Great Recession.” Job growth was weighted for approximately one-third of the score. The other two-thirds of the score consisted of a variety of demographic factors that were all weighted equally. These included:

•  rates of family formation (that is, the percentage growth in children aged 5 to 17)
• growth in educated migration
• population growth
• attractiveness to immigrants

Why were these factors key? According to NewGeography’s Joel Kotkin, “College-educated migrants, new families and immigrants will be critical in shaping the future.” Kotkin explains that metro areas where few educated migrants move and that are losing young families are poised for decline, not growth.

Given the measures that were used, most of the cities on the Top 10 aren’t surprising, as they generally boast high population growth, lots of young families and other positive factors like temperate climates and access to major transportation hubs. Washington, DC, might seem a surprising choice, but its reliance on government-related jobs and contracting has made the area somewhat “recession-proof.” And while Phoenix, Arizona, and Orlando, Florida have both suffered big hits to their housing markets, they are benefiting from the continued influx of immigrants, children and families.

Here are the top 10 boom towns; to see the complete list of 51, visit the NewGeography website.

1 Austin, TX (shown above)

2 Raleigh, NC

3 Nashville, TN

4 San Antonio, TX

5 Houston, TX

6 Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV

7 Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

8 Charlotte, NC-SC

9 Phoenix, AZ

10 Orlando, FL

Image by Flickr user Stuart Seeger (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Small Business, small business, Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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