Bend 4th Among Fastest-Growing Cities Nationwide

BEND, OR — A study published Monday appears to show Bend is the fourth fastest-growing city in the United States. Of the 515 ranked cities across the nation, also on the list were Hillsboro (51), Salem (112), Portland (140), Medford (155), Eugene (167),Beaverton (213), Gresham (280), and Vancouver, Washington (242).

WalletHub.com, the personal finance consultancy website that published the study, reportedly ranked each city using evaluated data based on "Sociodemographics" and "Jobs & Economy." The website also broke down the data by population size for each city.

Among the 200 ranked small cities with fewer than 100,000 residents, Bend — with just more than 91,000 residents, according to a 2016 census estimate — came in second.

The metrics associated with the "Sociodemographics" category included population growth, working-age population growth, and college-educated population growth.

The metrics for "Jobs & Economy" included job growth, the increase in ratio of full-time to part-time jobs, median household income growth, unemployment rate decrease, poverty rate decrease, growth in regional GDP per capita, increases in numbers of businesses as well as start-ups, increases in venture capital investments, median house price growth, building-permit activity growth, and foreclosure rate decreases.

With a max of 100 points available, Bend scored a respectable 72.45. Bend ranked second overall among the "Jobs & Economy" category and 17th among the "Sociodemographics" category.

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The top 10 overall fastest-growing cities (and their scores) were listed as follows:

1. Fort Myers, Florida (76.57)
2. Midland, Texas (73.55)
3. Pearland, Texas (72.68)
4. Bend, Oregon (72.45)
5. McKinney, Texas (71.4)
6. College Station, Texas (71.17)
7. Lehigh Acres, Florida (71)
8. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (70.87)
9. Enterprise, Nevada (70.87)
10. Irvine, California (70.3)

Check out the full study at WalletHub.com by following this link.

Image via Egmont Strigl / imageBROKER/Shutterstock