Among Nation’s Fastest Growing Cities, Stamford Leads CT at #286

A new analysis of the 515 fastest growing cities in the U.S. shows just one Connecticut city has earn a place in the top 300, another in the top 400, and six others included in the bottom 100 – but making the list. It is a list, of course, developed prior to the impact of coronavirus on people’s moving plans, which appear at least initially to be impacting cities as well as suburbs.

The review, by the financial website WalletHub, ranked Stamford well ahead of other cities in the state, at number 286, followed by Norwalk at 396. Among Connecticut cities, Stamford and Norwalk were followed by Hartford at number 414, Danbury at 419, New Britain at 426, New Haven at 432 and Waterbury at 487.  The final Connecticut city to appear on the rankings list is the state’s largest, Bridgeport, at number 503.

Overall, the top ten fastest growing cities were Fort Myers, FL; Bend, OR; Meridian, ID; Milpitas, CA; Enterprise, NV; Frisco, TX; Town ‘n’ Country, FL; Round Rock, TX; Mount Pleasant, SC; and Nampa, ID.

Among 256 mid-size cities, Stamford ranked number 158, followed by Hartford at number 215, New Haven at 221, Waterbury at 242 and Bridgeport at 250. Among 193 small cities, Norwalk came in at number 138, Danbury was ranked 146, New Britain ranked at number 150.

To determine where the fastest local economic growth has occurred in the U.S., WalletHub compared 515 cities of varying population sizes based on 17 key measures of both growth and decline over a period of seven years.

The data sets included population growth, unemployment rate decrease, and growth in regional GDP per capita.  All the data categories were grouped into two rankings, sociodemographics and jobs & economy. Stamford’s overall ranking was 286, the city was ranked 181 in sociodemographics.  Hartford, while ranking 414 overall, was ranked 331 in jobs & economy categories.  In determining the sample, WaletHub considered only the “city proper” in each case and excluded cities in the surrounding metro area. Each city was categorized according to the following population-size guidelines: Large city: more than 300,000 people;  midsize city: 100,000 to 300,000 people; small city: Fewer than 100,000 people.

The analysis notes that the U.S. Census Bureau reports eight of the 15 cities with the largest population gains between 2010 and 2019 were located in the South and five were in the West.  Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Venture Capital Association and Renwood RealtyTrac, with most of the data including the years 2013 to 2019, according to WalletHub.