Providence metro area is 150th ‘best performing’

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Two years ago, in the most recent Milken Institute / Greenstreet Partners Best Performing Cities Index, the Providence-New Bedford-Fall River metropolitan area ranked 75th among metro regions nationwide. This year, it is the seventh-biggest loser, falling 75 spots to No. 150.
The index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas based on their ability to create and sustain jobs. It includes both long-term and short-term (five-year and one-year) measures of employment and salary growth. Four measures of technology output growth also are included, the institute said, “because of technology’s crucial role in regional economic growth.”
The Northeast dominated the list of the 20 biggest losers – led by Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, Maine (falling 115 spots to 157th), and Albany-Schenectady-Troy, N.Y. (down 100 spots to 166th) – and had no metro areas in this year’s Milken/Greenstreet list of biggest gainers.
Bracketing the Providence metro area were sixth-biggest loser Manchester-Nashua, N.H., falling 76 spots to 126th; and eighth-biggest loser Norwich-New London, Conn., falling 71 notches to No. 145.
But on the overall index, the Milken Institute’s Ross DeVol, Armen Bedroussian and Soojung Kim wrote in their report, “The lowest performers … once again come from the industrial Midwest. Nine of the bottom 10 performers on the 200 largest cities ranking are from this area, including the lowest ranked metro, Lansing-East Lansing, Mich.”
“Florida has a strong showing this year [taking three of the top six spots, including No. 1 Ocala], but national trends – such as a rebound in the tech sector, increasing global trade and the role of energy – are bringing some new metros to the top 10,” the authors wrote.
Among the 10 largest cities nationwide, the best performers were Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (with a 2007 ranking of 3), Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz. (4) and the greater Houston region (32), while Philadelphia (142), New York (148) and Chicago (152) brought up the rear.
The biggest mover this year was Lafayette, La., soaring 119 places from 143rd to 24th with the region’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
The Milken Institute is a publicly supported independent economic think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif. Its 2007 Milken Institute / Greenstreet Partners Best Performing Cities Index was sponsored by Greenstreet Real Estate Partners. For additional information, including the full list, visit www.milkeninstitute.org.