Huntsville and Mobile are “on the rise,” according to Nerd Wallet, an online publication that “offers data-driven tools and impartial info to help you make solid decisions about the money you work hard to earn.”
Nerd Wallet’s Divya Raghavan researched cities across the United States in an effort to find the top “rising” cities based on three categories:
1) Growth in working-age population: We looked at the growth in percentage of the city’s working-age population (16 years old and over).
2) Growth in income: We looked at the growth in median income for workers.
3) Growth in airport passenger traffic: We approximated how popular the city is by tracking passenger movement in the city’s airports. This gauges how many travelers, especially business travelers, are coming to the city to find industry and business opportunities.
“As the economy picks up, many people are looking around for booming cities with growing employment and thriving industry,” Raghavan said.
After crunching the numbers, two of America’s top 10 rising cities were found to be right here in Sweet Home Alabama.
Coming in at number 9 was Huntsville, Ala.
Huntsville is located in northern Alabama, north of the Tennessee River. Huntsville is a hub of aerospace and military technology companies and is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Cummings Research Park and Redstone Arsenal, a U.S. Army Post. Huntsville saw a 4.7 percent rise in employment, while weathering a slight drop of 2.5 percent in median income. The University of Alabama in Huntsville encourages students with an Entrepreneurship Club.
And rounding out the top 10 was Mobile, Ala.
Another Alabama city rounds out our top ten. Mobile is located near the mouth of the Mobile River in southwest Alabama. While Mobile had a slight drop of 0.2 percent in the employment rate, it has seen a tremendous 14.2 percent growth in median income since 2007. The Port of Mobile is the 12th largest port in the U.S., providing easy access to the Gulf of Mexico. The University of South Alabama’s Melton Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurshipcontributes research and insight to help the surrounding community.
Do you agree? Are Huntsville and Mobile “on the rise?”
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
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