Bloomberg recently ranked the Top 12 American Boomtowns.
The business editors “sorted through U.S. Census data for metropolitan areas to rank
those with the greatest population growth, then scored areas on growth in gross
domestic product, adjusted for inflation.”
They should have labeled them Boom-metros though, by the way
they lumped areas together to achieve a certain population threshold. For
instance, the number one Bloomberg boomer is Austin-Round Rock, Texas . A quick
calculation using Google Earth puts Round Rock about 16.5 miles from Austin, as the crow flies.
I point this out because Washington
DC “which includes neighboring towns in Virginia and Maryland ”
is Bloomberg boomer number 6. Using the same methodology I used with Boomberg
one, I determined that 16.5 miles in a straight line from the center of DC
would bring you right about to Fulton on the southern fringe of HoCo .
Close enough to feel the booms ripples.
In some ways HoCo, with its 5.2% unemployment rate is even doing
better than its next door boom-metro area where it is averaging 5.5%.
