New Milken Index Keeps Florida Cities Among Top Metros

For the second year in a row, Florida cities dominate the Milken Institute's top 200 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in the ability to create and sustain jobs. The top performer, Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, moved up 31 places from last year and is followed by last year's top scorer, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, and Naples-Marco Island, respectively.

Located near the John F. Kennedy Space Center, the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville area has a diversified economy with many aerospace and defense-related industries, the report states. The area's economy has expanded at a brisk pace over the past two years, with job growth rising to 5.3 percent in 2004.

Metros in the Southwest also scored well, with six areas among the top 20, including Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (10), Las Vegas-Paradise (11), Tucson (14), Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale (15), Santa Barbara-Santa Maria, Calif. (16), and Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Calif. (17). The Northeast landed just two metros in the top 20 and no metros in the Midwest made it into the top 20, according to the report. The only midwestern metro to make it into the top 50 is Madison, Wis. (35).

Nine of the bottom 10 spots in the index are from metros in the Midwest, including five from Michigan and four from Ohio. Weakness in manufacturing, caused by the recent recession and loss of competitiveness with foreign firms, had devastating consequences for economies in the midwestern metros, the report explains. The southern and mountain states had numerous metros in the top 50, which partly reflects lower business costs, fewer regulatory burdens, and an entrepreneurial-driven new business paradigm that is a catalyst for job creation, according to the report.

Also included in the rankings are top performing small cities. Again, Florida leads in this category with Fort Walton Beach-Crestview-Destin placing first, followed by Bend, Ore., and Prescott, Ariz.

In terms of national economic conditions, the report states that the global economy presents opportunities to those geographic areas able to respond quickly to both shocks and opportunities. Additionally, the rankings show that metro areas with low business costs and knowledge-based economies are most likely to create jobs.

The index is outcomes-based and includes measures of job, wage and salary, and technology output growth over the past five years and the latest year's performance. Explicit input measures of business costs, cost-of-living, and quality of life are not included. The Milken Institute's Best Performing Cities 2005 is available at http://www.milkeninstitute.org/.

Links to the index and more than 3,000 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/.