Charleston Regional Development Alliance

Berkeley, Charleston & Dorchester Counties

Printed from www.crda.org

Charleston/N. Charleston Metro among Milken's Best Performing Cities: Where America's Jobs Are Created

Jun. 1, 2003
Milken Institute
By Ross DeVol and Frank Fogelbach
Growing cities with diverse, stable economies – not the booming high-tech “new economies” of the 1990s – are the big winners in this year’s Milken Institute Best Performing Cities index.

The index measures where jobs are being created, economies are growing and businesses are thriving.

Unlike past years when technology-oriented metros dominated the top of the ranking, this year’s leaders have all earned their high marks the old-fashioned way – with traditional businesses like retail, a growing population, and reliable growth industries such as government and health care.

One trend this year is the success of many cities where government and higher education – which are less susceptible to business cycles – play an important role in the local economy.

The Best Performing Cities ranks 296 U.S. metro areas according to wage and salary growth, job growth and high-tech output growth using the most current data available, – primarily from the federal government.

This year's index landed the Charleston/N. Charleston metro among the nation's top 50 largest metro areas.
related information