Maybe it means, we didn’t know what we thought we knew. Maybe what we thought we knew is wrong. And maybe it’s about how things are measured.
We know which option we prefer.
But when it comes to growth among major cities since 2009, Atlanta ranks 63rd, according to a just-released calculation from WalletHub that compiles a number of economic metrics.
Okay, the top-ranked large city is Austin. And Detroit is at the bottom. No problem there. But this puts Atlanta right behind St. Louis and Cleveland — that can’t be right, can it?
In any event, this is what they say about Atlanta – remember the smaller the number, the faster the growth and the better the rank:
• Population Growth: 512th
• Median Household Income Growth: 434th
• Job Growth: 161st
• Poverty Rate Decrease: 153rd
• Growth in Number of Businesses: 277th
• Median House Price Growth: 406th
As Seth Meyers might say, this calls… for a closer look.
After all, we thought Atlanta was one of the leaders of the pack coming out of the recession. So what gives?
One immediate caveat: this is the city we’re talking about, not the metro region, which has – by most other indications – been producing jobs faster than the national average. Could it be that the rankings ignore the region’s success?
All those jobs – a lot of them are outside city limits, but they are part of the Atlanta story, are they not?
And if we did deep, are some of these numbers outdated or misleading?
And the numbers were, we note, crunched by the list-happy folks at WalletHub. Still, though they make a fetish of rankings, we haven't yet seen a decent challenge to their data.
WalletHub, based in Washington, D.C. and making its actual business from offering consumer financial information and advice, compared 515 cities using 14 "key" metrics. They offered separate rankings for large, midsize and small cities.
Perhaps this is, if nothing else, a sign of just how badly Atlanta was hammered during and after the recession. We fell farther than most other places and were slow to climb out. And maybe the last couple years haven’t made up for that, data-and-calculation-and-rankings-wise.
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