Charleston job growth is hot, Inc. magazine says

The Holy City has been named a small-business “boomtown” in the May issue of Inc. magazine.

Charleston was named the 12th-hottest town for job growth in the “medium-sized” category, which includes cities with 150,000 to 450,000 jobs. Inc. cited the city’s defense contractors, the port and a cadre of tech start-ups in its report. Charleston was right behind Boise, Idaho, and just in from of Tucson, Ariz. Winston-Salem, N.C., ranked 31st, Asheville, N.C. finished 42nd and Columbia was No. 50.

“Call it the revenge of the boondocks,” Inc. author Joel Kotkin wrote. “Demographic trends have accelerated to the point that what once constituted the periphery is no longer, well, peripheral.”

Inc. crunches federal job growth rates a number of ways to draw up its roster. South Carolina on the whole got poor marks for employment growth from the magazine.