Milken Institute's Best-Performing Cities Index: Colorado Cities Slide From 2009 Rankings

Last week, the California-based Milken Institute released its annual ranking of the top-performing metro areas in the country. As the Milken Institute points out, in most years, the study--which took into account job growth, salary and wage growth, workforce quality, access to capital, concentration of high-tech industries, and housing/utility costs--serves as an effective "indication of the underlying structural performance of regional economies."

Due to current economic conditions, the Milken Institute advises that higher-ranking cities in the 2010 study be viewed as those that were "able to minimize the job losses and economic dislocations in the midst of a severe national recession."

In that context, most Colorado cities slipped from their 2009 rankings. Greeley fell the furthest of all the Colorado cities surveyed, falling from # 20 in 2009 to # 101 in 2010, likely due to the continued effects of the housing crisis. Four of the five major Colorado cities surveyed fell in the rankings. Only Colorado Springs moved up from number 101 to number 99.

(Via Face The State)