Tulsa's falls in Best-Performing Cities index
BY LAURIE WINSLOW World Staff Writer
Friday, January 18, 2013
1/18/13 at 7:03 AM
Metro Tulsa's ranking dropped in the Milken Institute's Best-Performing Cities index for 2012, while Oklahoma City's rose.
Out of the 200 largest metro areas, Tulsa fell to No. 118 last year from No. 86 in 2011. Oklahoma City rose to No. 32, up from No. 50.
The index includes measures of job, wage and technology performance to rank the nation's 200 large metropolitan areas and 179 smaller metros. The ranking does not use quality-of-life metrics, such as commute times or housing costs.
Lawton ranked No. 71 among the index's smaller metros.
Among individual components, employment growth is weighted the most heavily because of its importance to community vitality. Wage and salary growth measures the quality of jobs created and sustained.
Cities with strong exposure to technological innovation scored high in the ranking. Also, a recovery in traditional manufacturing, particularly autos and heavy capital goods such as mining equipment and excavators, helped the best-performing cities.
The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area in California climbed back to No. 1 - a position it last held in 2001. For each job added in the tech sector, five jobs are created in other industries, according to the report.
Other tech-heavy cities that scored among the top 10 included Austin, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; the Washington, D.C., metro area; and Cambridge, Mass.
"People expect tech to be one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy, and it was," said Ross DeVol, chief research officer of the Milken Institute and one of the report's authors, in a written statement. "A perhaps less expected highlight of this year's rankings is how the national resurgence in manufacturing is reflected in the greatly improved fortune of local economies, especially in the upper Midwest."
Tulsa's five-year high-tech GDP growth ranked No. 88 between 2006 and 2011 relative to the U.S. average, while Oklahoma City's was No. 125.
The index's measures reflect the concentration and diversity of technology industries within the metros. High-tech location quotients, which measure the industry's concentration in a particular metro relative to the national average, are included to gauge an area's participation in the knowledge-based economy.
While Tulsa ranked No. 142 for its high-tech GDP location quotient, Oklahoma City ranked No. 156.
When it came to job growth, metro Tulsa ranked No. 149 for its one-year job growth between 2010 and 2011 and No. 99 for its five-year job growth between 2006 to 2011, according to the report.
Oklahoma City ranked No. 30 for its one-year job growth and No. 24 for its five-year growth.
Metro Tulsa ranked No. 23 for job growth between May 2011 to May 2012, while Oklahoma City ranked No. 30.
Also, Tulsa ranked No. 46 for its five-year wages and salaries growth between 2005 to 2010 relative to the national average, and No. 177 for its one-year growth, according to the report.
Best-Performing Cities
1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.
2. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas
3. Raleigh-Cary, N.C.
4. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas
5. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W Va.
32. Oklahoma City
118. Tulsa
Original Print Headline: Tulsa falls 32 in Best-Performing Cities index
Laurie Winslow 918-581-8466
laurie.winslow@tulsaworld.com
