Logan recognized as Best-Performing small city in America

LOGAN – The Milken Institute has once again recognized the Logan area as a top performing economy. According to its 2022 report, the Logan, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) – which includes all of Cache and Franklin counties – is the top small city in America. Last year, the area ranked second among small cities in the annual report that monitors economic resilience and opportunity across the country.

The Logan metro was recognized as the #1 Best-Performing small city in the country by the Milken Institute for 2022. Image and graphic courtesy of Milken Institute.

“Notably, the Cache Valley placed within the top 10 indicators in one-year job growth (fifth), five-year job growth (eighth), one-year wage growth (second), and five-year wage growth (fifth),” the report states. “With a second-place rank overall in high-tech industry diversity, the Logan metro is home to a host of high-tech medical manufacturing industries including pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.”

Kevin Klowden, executive director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Regional Economics and California Center, says Logan has been scoring well for a while and one factor that has been on the climb is wages.

“The fact that Logan came in second in wage growth means the kinds of jobs that were being added were particularly higher paying jobs, a number of technology-related jobs,” Klowden explains. “Logan happens to have a rather diverse level of high-tech industries.”

The report primarily studied data collected in 2020, but also includes a look at short term job growth that occurred between November 2020 to November 2021. In that area, Logan ranked 21st with a modest 2.2% growth. This year’s index also includes information about access to broadband internet. In this case, the Logan MSA ranks 15th.

“Broadband access is actually something that is incredibly uneven across the United States. It’s even uneven in larger metros. In metros that had either worked in the past with cable companies or worked more recently with broadband upgrades and had that access it gives a huge advantage.”

A developer is building 312 apartments and 55 townhomes in Logan with indoor basketball and pickleball courts and swimming pools and hot tubs along the Nibley/Logan border adjacent to Nibley City parks.

Klowden says access to broadband internet not only provides greater advantages for remote learning and telecommuting, but also creates an advantage for any future companies looking to expand or relocate to a metro with the infrastructure already in place to support them.

Not everything was rosy about Logan in the report. Cache Valley ranks 178th in the report’s Housing Affordability Index and Klowden says the decrease in affordable housing, in relation to local salaries, is an issue in many metros throughout the Intermountain West.

“There have been so many people moving in, in particular during COVID when people basically decided from California and other various locations that they just didn’t want to live in an apartment in a city when they could work remotely or work connected to a local tech company and be able to have a house and have a lifestyle,” Klowden says. “That mad rush of people in, and people particularly because of tech jobs coming with money, it had a real impact on housing, and not just Logan, but Provo, Salt Lake and St. George. In fact, it’s been so intense in Provo that Provo is now viewed proportionately as less affordable than Salt Lake City.”

Communities across the Intermountain West scored well for their resiliency through the pandemic, particularly those located in Utah and Idaho. Among large cities, Provo-Orem ranked first (first in 2021), Salt Lake City third (fourth in 2021), Ogden-Clearfield 13th (ninth in 2021) and Boise, Idaho 15th (sixth in 2021). Among small cities, Logan ranked first (second in 2021), St. George second (fourth in 2021), Coeur d’Alene, Idaho third (sixth in 2021), Idaho Falls, Idaho fifth (first in 2021), and Pocatello, Idaho 30th (59th in 2021).

“If you look at some of the policies that have been into place – particularly in Utah for a number of years, as well as the successes in Colorado and a certain amount of spillover into Idaho – this has been an ongoing trend,” Klowden added, “where we’ve seen a number of these firms (either tech spinoffs, life-sciences companies and others) have found that the mountain west region is incredibly appealing.”

Logan, Utah, USA – April 26, 2019: Evening view of storefronts along main street in the downtown business district. Denis Tangney, Jr. / Getty Images

The report states that so many high rankings across the state of Utah indicate the state’s continued success at creating jobs and raising wages.

“The 2022 version of the index shows that cities in the Intermountain West with expanding tech economies were able to maintain the positive growth trend that had started before the pandemic…”

With Utah State University as an anchor institution in Cache Valley, coupled with Bridgerland Technical University and Weber State University not that far way, there is access to an engineering and research talent pool. Major employers in Cache Valley include USU, Conservice, Logan Regional Hospital, Gossner Foods, iFIT, ThermoFisher and Cytiva. High tech manufacturing companies have also recently expanded to Logan, including Electric Power Systems and Charon Technologies.

Klowden says that once a community rises to the top of these rankings, they usually stay there for a while. But the annual index can also provide input on rising concerns that communities can try to address, such as the availability of affordable housing in relation to local wages.

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7 Comments

  • J.K. Humphreys March 29, 2022 at 8:28 pm Reply

    Don’t suppose you guys would start writing articles on how horrible the air quality is in Logan and Cache Valley. Or how there is a severe lack of things to do in the evenings. We don’t mind a little growth in the valley but it is out of control. The small town feel that we love is quickly turning into a mini Salt Lake City and we don’t want that here. At the very least stop punishing articles like this. We will live in the valley all know how amazing it is, let’s not advertise it to the rest of the world.

    • KA March 30, 2022 at 7:36 am Reply

      Don’t you think the growth might also have to do with Mormon families having 5-7 kids each who never leave the valley and then those kids having 5-7 kids who never leave the family, and so on?

      • Blayne April 13, 2022 at 10:23 am Reply

        If you hate Mormons, then yes, this is a logical conclusion. If you look at the numbers, then no, most of the growth is due to move ins.

  • Mlfurm March 30, 2022 at 4:50 pm Reply

    Wage growth doesn’t mean the wages are high at all. The reason why they can rank high in growth is because the wages have been (and still are) so terrible for so long now. About 5-6 years ago it came out that Logan had the second worst wages in the country! So it’s easy to score high on wage growth because it’s starting from so low. Should have just looked at actual average wage rather than the growth.

    • Abe April 12, 2022 at 4:32 pm Reply

      We look forward to seeing your ranking soon.

  • Doug Hendrixson March 30, 2022 at 5:27 pm Reply

    I was tasked with tracking down classmates for the Logan High class of ’65 fiftieth year class reunion. Amazing how few of them were still living in Logan and Cache Valley (guessing less than 15%). Many are in Colorado (myself included), California and Nevada, but most along the Wasatch front from Ogden to Orem. Back in 1965, it was almost impossible finding a job, any job, let alone a high paying job, capable of supporting a family in Cache Valley (despite very affordable housing costs). This led to a net out-migration of children raised and educated in the Valley, for myself, and most of my classmates. My, how times have changed in terms of the job market in Logan and Cache Valley. Net result is stunning housing and population growth, and its associated shopping and traffic impacts, at the expense of farms, lush green pastures, and open spaces along the benches, — some of the things that made Cache Valley such a special place in our hearts and minds.

  • DRA April 6, 2022 at 9:13 am Reply

    Good or Bad, “You find what you are looking for”

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