The Milken Institute released this 2014 ranking of America’s “best-performing” cities. These cities are where job growth in emerging sectors–tech, biosciences, digital media, and shale gas–is high. And where there are jobs, everything else follows. These cities are booming with new construction, new residents, and economic success.
The best-performing city for 2013 is Austin, Tex., which should surprise nobody who’s been there in the past few years. Milken calls it “a case study in concocting the proper recipe for economic vitality.” The metro area has the 13th-highest concentration of tech GDP in the nation and the city has added nearly 200,000 jobs over eight years.