Valdosta #51 of 379! Closest MSAs as green on the map are Auburn-Opelika #37, Atlanta #41, Charleston #11, and Nashville, TN at #14.

Highest weighted components are for growth in jobs, wages, and salaries, so apparently there has been some improvement in those areas. Here are the rank components from the PDF report, plus the corresponding scores from www.best-cities.org:

Rank			Job Growth		Wage Growth		Short-Term Job Growth	High-Tech GDP Growth		High-Tech GDP LQ	Number of High-Tech Industries
Change	2012	2013	2007-12	2011-12	2006-11	2010-11	7/2012- 7/2013	2007-12	2011-12	2012	with LQ≥1 2012
50	101	51	128	33	73	133	84	15	4	76	13
Score			97.36	100.68	102.32	97.65	109.89%	129.20	119.63	0.56	6.0

The five job growth components are weighted 1/7th each, and the four high-tech components are weighted half as much, 1/14th each. The first four scores appear to be relative to 100 for the entire U.S. Where exactly Milliken Institute got their data is not clear, especially for these: Continue reading →