An interesting report released in October from the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, a business policy think tank, ranked the top 10 fastest-growing cities in the U.S.
To determine the rankings, the think tank considered each city’s county-level employment rates and economic output. And the final list is a good indication of where young people want to live and work, as well as what they value.
In order, here are the 10 fastest growing cities and metro areas in the United States.
- San Francisco / Bay Area, California
- Austin, Texas
- Seattle, Washington
- Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina
- Dallas, Texas
- Denver, Colorado
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Orlando, Florida
It may come as no surprise that San Francisco tops the list. Over the last 10 years, San Francisco has become synonymous with Silicon Valley. Even after all this time, the city continues to see exponential growth.
The tech hub starts in the southern part of the Bay Area and also includes other nearby cities such as San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Jose, Palo Alto, Cupertino and Mountain View.
Despite San Francisco’s housing market decline due to the shift to remote work and layoffs from top tech companies, the GDP in the area so far in 2022 is $1.4 trillion, a 4.8% increase year over year.
The second city on the list is Austin, Texas, which has become home to major companies such as Amazon, Google, Tesla and Oracle, which have all recently expanded their operations in the Texas city.
The mass exodus from other metros such as the Bay Area has helped increase property values in Austin. According to the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, the median home value increased from $349,156 in August 2020 to $566,479 in August 2022.
In 2022, Austin’s GDP is $216 billion so far, a growth of 4.3% year over year.
And ranked number three on the list is Seattle, Washington. The city of Seattle has become a leader in clean energy, moving forward with plans to enact new initiatives for cleaner buildings.
It’s also the home to tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft, and younger job-seekers are eager to relocate to the home of the space needle. According to Axios and The Generation Lab’s 2022 Next Cities Index, Seattle topped the list of cities where college students want to live after graduation.
Seattle’s GDP in 2022 is $583 billion so far, a 3.5% yearly growth.
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