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SmartAsset Names Longmont Top Boomtown In USA

According to website smartasset.com, Longmont Colorado is the top boomtown in America.
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Top 10 boomtowns in the USA according to the smartasset.com website.

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

According to website smartasset.com, Longmont Colorado is the top boomtown in America based on available data right now. From their website:

1. Longmont, CO

Longmont, Colorado – located northeast of Boulder – leads the way in our study on the top U.S. boomtowns. It ranks in the top 25% of the study for all metrics we considered. Its economy has been doing well, as it ranks ninth overall for its yearly GDP growth from 2013 through 2017, at more than 5%. Longmont has top-30 rates for its unemployment rate and high five-year 
housing growth rate, at 2.6% and approximately 18%, respectively.

The website used the following methodology to come up with the ranking:

Source: smartasset.com article on top boomtowns in the US:

Data & Methodology

In order to find the top boomtowns in the U.S., we analyzed data for 500 of the largest cities. We looked at the most recent data available for each of the following seven metrics:

  • Population change. This is the percentage change in the population for the five-year period from 2014 through 2018. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2014 and 2018 1-year American Community Surveys and is measured at the city level.
  • Unemployment rate. July 2019 data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and is measured at the county level.
  • GDP growth rate. This is the average yearly growth in total output for the five-year period from 2013 through 2017. Data comes from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and is measured at the metro area level.
  • One-year change in unemployment rate. This is the difference in the unemployment rate between August 2018 and July 2019. Data is from the BLS and is measured at the county level.
  • Five-year establishment growth. This is the percentage change in the number of establishments from 2012 through 2016. Data is from the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns Survey and is measured at the county level.
  • Five-year housing growth. This is the percentage change in the number of housing units from 2014 through 2018. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2014 and 2018 1-year American Community Surveys and is measured at the city level.
  • Five-year change in household income. This is the percentage change in the median household income from 2014 through 2018. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2014 and 2018 1-year American Community Surveys and is measured at the city level.

First we ranked each city in each metric. Then we calculated the average ranking for each city, assigning a single weight to all metrics except for unemployment rate and one-year change in unemployment rate, both of which received a half weight. We used the average rankings to create our final score. The city with the best average ranking received a score of 100. The city with the worst average ranking received a score of 0.

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