Report: Most Prosperous Cities in the U.S.

Posted on Jun 1 2018 - 12:10pm by Liz Dominguez
#0

prosperous citiesWhere's the best place to live in the U.S.? It's a complex question that doesn't have one right answer. To get an idea of how cities compare to each other in terms of prosperity, RentCafé measured increases across six indicators—population, income, home value, higher education, poverty rate and unemployment rating—from 2000 to 2016. The final standings were based on the combined value of all ranks.

The most prosperous state by far? Texas. It beats out most of the competition, claiming six spots on the top 20 list; however, California has the highest concentration of prosperous cities.

As for cities with positive changes in all prosperity indicators, Odessa, Texas ranked at the top, followed by Washington, D.C, Charleston, S.C., and Brownsville, Texas. At the bottom of the list across all prosperity indicators? Rockford, Ill., landed the last spot with Toledo, Ohio, and Mesquite, Texas, not far behind.

Here are the top five most prosperous cities in the U.S.:

  1. Odessa, Texas

Population Change: 25 percent

Income Change: 38 percent

Home Value Change: 91 percent

Higher Education Change: 26 percent

Poverty Rate Change: -36 percent

Unemployment Rate Change: -24 percent

  1. Washington, D.C.

Population Change: 15 percent

Income Change: 30 percent

Home Value Change: 135 percent

Higher Education Change: 42 percent

Poverty Rate Change: -11 percent

Unemployment Rate Change: -19 percent

  1. Charleston, S.C.

Population Change: 35 percent

Income Change: 16 percent

Home Value Change: 39 percent

Higher Education Change: 34 percent

Poverty Rate Change: -15 percent

Unemployment Rate Change: -10 percent

  1. Fontana, Calif.

Population Change: 60 percent

Income Change: 3 percent

Home Value Change: 60 percent

Higher Education Change: 57 percent

Poverty Rate Change: 3 percent

Unemployment Rate Change: 18 percent

  1. North Charleston, S.C.

Population Change: 34 percent

Income Change: -3 percent

Home Value Change: 59 percent

Higher Education Change: 53 percent

Poverty Rate Change: -2 percent

Unemployment Rate Change: -1 percent

Not many cities (only 11 out of over 300) reported improvements across all indicators. This doesn't, however, point to a lack of prosperity across U.S. cities; this just means many cities focus on big improvements across one or two indicators instead of minor improvements in all categories.

For details on the remaining most prosperous U.S. cities and to read the entire report, click here.

Leave A Response