Nine places fared even better than Denver, though they share similar qualities: more business opportunities, better weather and more affordable housing. The top three areas according to the data are Raleigh, N.C., ranking first, which jumped 4.29% to nearly 1.9 million; Austin, Texas, which came in second, with a 3.77% increase to almost 1.7 million; and Charlotte, N.C., which moved up 3.36% to 1.7 million.
All these areas’ increases were smaller in 2008 than they were in 2007, (Raleigh increased by 4.7% in 2007, Austin by 4.29% and Charlotte by 4.2%), but a slight slowdown is not necessarily a bad thing, according to William Frey, Ph.D., a demographer at the Brookings Institute, an independent research and policy group based in Washington, D.C. “Part of the story here is the rapid rise in growth in the middle of decade,” says Frey. “That growth was unnatural.”
The in-migration that happened in the middle of this decade certainly had a lot to do with the housing boom. When that went bust, so did those crazy population balloons. But these particular places are still growing because instead of building an economy that relies heavily on one industry (in Las Vegas, it’s hospitality; in New York, it’s finance), most of the metro areas on our list serve as headquarters for a diverse range of companies.
