Survey: Spokane on the upswing

Another yardstick shows Spokane’s economy has turned the corner and is chugging ahead.

The annual Milken Institute ranking of Best Performing Cities has Spokane ranked 55th out of 200 U.S. cities for its economic performance during 2003.

That’s the highest Spokane has ever appeared on the institute’s ranking. It’s been as low as 161 in the 2000 ranking and as high as 98 in the 2002 report. Last year Spokane ranked 157th out of 200 cities.

The rankings are based on job growth, income growth and the overall health of the technology sector in each economy, based on data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The highest-ranked Northwest metropolitan area this year is Boise, ranked 13th this year. Tacoma rose to 32nd from 58th.

“The ranking (for Spokane) shows that your economy is finally turning around,” said Skip Rimer, communications director for the institute, an economic analysis group based in Santa Monica, Calif.

The nation’s best-performing economies were found in Fort Myers, Fla.; Las Vegas; Phoenix; West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, Fla.; and Daytona Beach, Fla., according to Milken’s rankings.

Spokane, out of the 200 large metro areas, showed the third-highest yearly gain, according to Randy Barcus, Avista Corp.’s chief economist. “That’s pretty good company,” he said, noting that the two cities seeing faster gains were Daytona Beach and Honolulu.

At the same time, Spokane came from way down on the list — 157th a year ago — and that allows it to make up a lot of ground, Barcus said.

Spokane’s best contributor to its overall score was its five-year growth in the high-tech sector, said Rimer. Spokane scored 13th out of all 200 cities for overall tech-sector job growth, he said.

Where Spokane did poorest, he noted, was for growth in wages and salaries from 2001 to 2002 (the most recent years for that data). Spokane landed 148th on that scale, Rimer said.

In Milken’s rankings of smaller metropolitan areas, Missoula, Mont., was the top-rated city.

Last year, Missoula wasn’t even counted because it wasn’t a formal metropolitan statistical area, Rimer said.

The four next-best smaller cities in the ratings were: Las Cruces, New Mexico; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Dover, Del.; and Casper, Wyo.

Ranked at the bottom of the barrel were Florence, Ala., in the small-metro group, and Rockford, Ill., in the large-area list.

Seattle landed at 94th this year, up from 138 a year ago. Portland-Vancouver, Wash. placed 120th, up from 141 in 2003.

For the full list of rankings, go to http://bestcities.milkeninstitute.org/