2015 Best Performing Cities

I ran into this article today about the best performing big cities:



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boom-and-bust-cities-of-2015-191725627.html#


Best Performing Cities.png

And Provo is #3!! And just as important, better than SLC! So, my first question was, "How do you determine a best performing city? Well by going to the actual website that created the metric:



http://www.best-cities.org/best-performing-cities-2015-large-cities-rankings.html

The 2015 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. The components include job, wage and salary, and technology growth. In most years, these give a good indication of the underlying structural performance of regional economics.

Maybe I need to start looking for a job in Provo? I'm a finance analyst in St. Louis and I do occasionally check out the job market in the Provo/SLC area, but I generally get the feeling that the Salary to Cost of Living Ratio is worse there. St. Louis just has a really low cost of living. Even when I interviewed for a position in Montana several sites said that Montana has a higher cost of living than St. Louis which really surprised me.

You tend to pay a premium by living in Utah County. That premium is accepting lower salary then you could get most other places even taking into consideration cost of living. For some people it's worth it to live in an area that is what they like. For others it isn't.

I think the sacrifice would definitely be worth it to get out of St. Louis (disclaimer: I've never been to St. Louis other than in the airport, I just hear terrible things about it).

byufan4ever wrote:
I ran into this article today about the best performing big cities:



http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boom-and-bust-cities-of-2015-191725627.html#


Best Performing Cities.png

And Provo is #3!! And just as important, better than SLC! So, my first question was, "How do you determine a best performing city? Well by going to the actual website that created the metric:



http://www.best-cities.org/best-performing-cities-2015-large-cities-rankings.html

The 2015 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. The components include job, wage and salary, and technology growth. In most years, these give a good indication of the underlying structural performance of regional economics.

Maybe I need to start looking for a job in Provo? I'm a finance analyst in St. Louis and I do occasionally check out the job market in the Provo/SLC area, but I generally get the feeling that the Salary to Cost of Living Ratio is worse there. St. Louis just has a really low cost of living. Even when I interviewed for a position in Montana several sites said that Montana has a higher cost of living than St. Louis which really surprised me.

What are talking about? You can cut down logs, build an outhouse, get chickens and a cow and live at a very low cost of living in Montana. We came close to that although we had both types of "restrooms" and a regular (?) house. Seriously, the Bitterroot is a beautiful valley and I still call myself a Montana Mormon.

Housing in Montana is not what I thought it was going to be. I went around with a real estate agent and was shocked how little sq for my money I would get. I was expecting to get like 2x the land/house for what I have in STL and I was way off. In may cases it was less. I did not like what I saw in Helena from a cost perspective.