San Antonio Ranked #1 Best Performing City by the Milken Institute
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While San Antonio moved up 13 positions to Number 1 out of 200 large metros, 4 out of the 5 top cities were Texas cities. Out of the top 25 cities, 9 Texas cities made the list. This is ranked based upon economic growth and prosperity taking into account the jobs, wages and technology performance of the city. San Antonio has had military base realignments with Fort Sam Houston having a huge base construction with regards to the new military mission support group. There has been a major BRAC move involved with this new endeavor bringing in many new troops. This along with the Eagleford Shale discovery in South Texas has contributed greatly to the economic growth in this area of San Antonio and Wilson County and the rest of South Texas.
The new drilling techniques that are being used in the Eagleford Shale formation caused a boom from San Antonio south to Corpus Christi. The heaviest concentration is in Karnes County, McMullen County and Frio Counties and a lot of other southern counties which are south of San Antonio but there is a big ripple through all of South Texas. Common thoughts are this is moving northward and will be an economic impact for the next 20 years.
Housing prices fell less than 5 percent from the beginning of the recession in 2008. However, new residents are buying up available housing as they vie for available jobs. The typical seasonal lull has affected San Antonio per the San Antonio Board of Realtors. Per their statistics sales were down 5% in November of 2011 from November 2010. This is probably not a trend that will continue due to all the people moving into the area.
Texas employers created one out of every six new jobs in the United States for the year ending Oct. 31. 2011. The report indicates that Texas benefits from a lower reliance on durable good manufacturing, low business costs, the ongoing consolidation of military bases, increased trade with Mexico and South America, energy exploration, and development and aggressive recruiting of employers from less business-friendly states. This does not even mention the fact that Texas has NO state income tax and is a business friendly environment. Per the institute’s chief research officer the cities that did the best took advantage of all these factors and as a result the housing markets with the most resilience are in those cities.
The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan economic think tank, based in Santa Monica, Calif. The full Milken Institute report with city rankings is available by clicking here.
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