New Orleans ranks second on list of booming U.S. cities

By David T. Baker
The Louisiana Weekly

New Orleans once again makes a list of America’s top cities.

A report by Bloomberg Rankings ranks the New Orleans area, in­cluding neighbors Metairie and Kenner, as No. 2 on a list of “Top 12 American Boomtowns.”

The list is a ranking of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. between 2007 and 2011 based on census data for metropolitan areas combed through by Bloomberg Rankings. The group used the data to identify areas with population growth, then “scored areas on growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation,” an article about the list on Bloomberg.com said.

“It’s a reaffirmation of the pro­gress we’re seeing on the ground,” said New Orleans Mayor Lan­drieu’s spokesperson Ryan Berni. “The city is being physically rebuilt from streets to libraries to parks to community centers. Neighborhoods are being revitalized. New companies are moving in. Retail is finally coming back and in a big way.”

Once the two scores were combined, the list was sifted down to regions with more than one million residents in order to identify the nation’s fastest-growing cities.

The New Orleans area reportedly had the largest population growth among U.S. regions from 2007 to 2011. The region saw growth in population from 1,030,363 in 2007 to 1,191,089 in 2011 — a 15.6 percent increase, the data shows, and a GDP compound annual growth of two percent.

As the area continues to rebuild from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including reconstruction of damaged homes and businesses, there has been a surge in heavy construction jobs according to Allison Plyer of GNOCDC.

These construction jobs as well as jobs created through the relocation of large companies to the area such as General Electric have been a boon that has the area’s unemployment rate at 5.9 percent, which is below the national average.

“Just in the past 10 days, we have celebrated a string of major wins all across New Orleans from opening the GE Capital Technology Center, which will bring 300 high-paying, high-tech jobs, to breaking ground on the new Walmart in New Orleans East to reopening the Tremé Center,” said Berni. “And next week, we’ll have additional ribbon cuttings and we’ll break ground on the Broad ReFresh project which is bringing a Whole Foods to Broad Street thanks to the City’s Fresh Food Retailer Initiative.”

In 2012, the New Orleans area’s population rose to 1.2 million, the data shows.

You can follow David T. Baker on Twitter at @Tadfly.

This article originally published in the May 13, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.