New Geography has ranked cities for job growth and has a neat interactive map as well as traditional rankings for large, medium, and small cities.
The top job growth rankings for all cities regardless of size are the small neighbouring cities of Midland and Odessa TX. Both have a weighted index of 100, the highest possible. This is due to their fracking boom. I worked in the oil fields there in the 1970’s. Midessa, as the two cities are called, goes through massive boom and busts phases. A musician friend who travelled through Midland a few years back said things were so bad that tumbleweeds might as well have been blowing down Main Street. Now you probably can’t even find an apartment to rent. And that is how the oil patch works.
Columbus IN zoomed from #372 to #3 in overall rankings. Wow. It is home to Cummins and other engine equipment manufacturing (and may get dinged this year if the economy continues to slow.)
Number #1 for big cities, no surprise here, is metro San Francisco with San Jose #7. The Salt Lake City / Provo area in Utah continues to quietly boom, as always.
How’s where you live doing?