AZ Big Media 7 Valley cities rank in Top 100 Boomtowns in America
Metro Phoenix ranks highly in America’s Top Boomtowns for 2022. Seven Valley cities are among the top 100 in SmartAsset’s annual list. Here are the cities in Arizona that are among the boomtowns in America:
No. 17. Peoria
No. 25. Goodyear
No. 30. Surprise
No. 37. Kramer
No. 49. Valley of San Tan
No. 59. Gilbert
No. 63. Mesa
ALSO READ: 10 Most Expensive ZIP Codes in Arizona
ALSO READ: Ranking Arizona: Top 10 Best Places to Live in 2022
Economic uncertainty has been a top concern for most Americans in recent months, and many experts are predicting the financial struggles will continue into the new year. But despite the many challenges Americans face nationwide, there are some US cities that have managed to grow in recent years.
In a new study, SmartAsset uncovered the fastest growing cities in the US. We analyzed data for 494 of the largest cities on topics such as population growth, income, GDP, business, housing and changes in unemployment. For more information about our data or how we compile our results, see the Data and Methodology section below.
This is SmartAsset’s 2022 edition of America’s top boomtowns. View the previous version here.
Important Findings
• The West and the South dominate the top 50. In fact, there is no city outside of these two regions until #52 (Jersey City, New Jersey). The top 10 western and southern cities perform well in terms of population, business and housing growth, ranking in the top quintile throughout the study.
• People flock to Enterprise, Nevada. From 2016 to 2021, Enterprise’s population grew by over 75%, helping it rank 117th in the top quartile overall in our study. Three other cities grew more than 30% during the same period (New Braunfels, Texas; Meridian, Idaho; and Goodyear, Arizona).
• In 22 boomtowns, the housing market grew by more than 24% within five years. From 2016 to 2021, the number of residential units nationwide only grew by 4.75%. That number is significantly higher for two of our top cities: Meridian, Idaho and New Braunfels, Texas. From 2016 to 2021, the number of housing units in these two cities increased by 39.23% and 4.86%, respectively.
data and methodology
To find the top boomtowns in the US, we analyzed data for 500 of the largest cities, 494 of which had available data. We looked at the latest available data for each of the seven metrics below:
Five-year population change. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2016 and 2021 annual American Community Surveys and is available at the city level.
Average annual GDP growth. This is the compound annual growth in total output for the three-year period from 2017 to 2020. Data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and is available at the county level.
Five-year growth in the number of companies. This is the percentage change in the number of businesses from 2015 to 2020. The data is from the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns Survey and is available at the county level.
Five years in number of housing units. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2016 and 2021 annual American Community Surveys and is available at the city level.
Unemployment rate September 2022. Data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and is available at the county level.
One-year change in the unemployment rate. This is the difference in the unemployment rate from September 2021 to September 2022. The data comes from the BLS and is available at the county level.
Five-year change in household income. This is the percentage change in median household income. Data is from the Census Bureau’s 2016 and 2021 annual American Community Surveys and is available at the city level.
We ranked each city in each metric, weighting all but two metrics equally: the September 2022 unemployment rate and the one-year change in the unemployment rate (both are half-weighted). We then determined the average ranking of each city. The city with the best average ranking comes first in our study, while the city with the lowest average ranking comes last.
