Best Performing Cities

This research report from the Milken Institute ranks U.S. metropolitan areas that are recording the top economic performance and creating the most jobs in the nation. The index is an outcomes-based measure as opposed to one that incorporates explicit measures of business costs, cost-of-living components such as housing, and other measures of quality-of-life, such as crime rates. While these static measures are important, they can be highly subjective in nature. If a metro has a high quality of life, it should be reflected in its firms’ ability to create jobs and attract human capital. The components of the index include job, wage and salary, and technology growth. The authors include both five-year and one-year performance data.