Las Vegas ranks squarely in the middle of a new ranking of America’s best cities for business.
MarketWatch.com used 23 indicators to score the nation’s 100 largest cities in a wide variety of metrics from business climate to economic performance of companies. And Las Vegas came in at No. 50.
Las Vegas scored 17th in company performance and 29th in business climate. The overall result was pulled down by the city’s ranking as 88th in economic outcome.
To measure economic outcome, MarketWatch researchers looked at a set of statistics including Bureau of Economic Analysis data on improvement in gross domestic product and growth in personal income; Bureau of Labor Statistics data on jobless rates, labor-force growth and payroll growth; and Census data on the number of businesses added.
Las Vegas scored best on company performance, which looked at results of publicly traded companies headquartered here.
The business climate calculation used Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data on population growth, work-eligible people as a share of the total population, education of the work force and the area’s patent production.
Numbers from Moody’s Analytics were folded in on cost of living, riskiness and commercial vitality.
Dallas finished first, followed by San Francisco, Seattle and Des Moines, Iowa. At the bottom were Stockton and Riverside, Calif. Lakeland, Fla., and Augusta, Ga., fared only slightly better.
Provo, Utah, finished eighth with Salt Lake City at No. 18. Los Angeles was No. 55 and Phoenix was No. 59.