Wilmington ranks in the upper third of Forbes’ list of Best Cities for Business and Careers for 2014 – a list topped by Raleigh for the first time.
The list was released Wednesday.
The Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), with a population figure of 385,700 that Forbes used in its calculations, came in at 60th out of 200 U.S. MSAs analyzed and ranked by the publication. Within that ranking, Wilmington was 15th nationally in the cost of doing business, 69th in educational attainment and 161st in job growth.
Scott Sullivan, chairman of the local Coalition for Economic Advancement group, focused on what he sees as obstacles within New Hanover County.
"Wilmington has an excellent rating on business cost and a good rating on education, so one would think that job growth would naturally follow, but unfortunately that’s not the case," he said in a statement. "Two reasons we attribute for our lackluster job growth are first -- overly strict regulations like the county’s special use permit, and secondly -- the lack of ready-to-go industrial sites served by water and sewer."
Sullivan said that, to attract more business and industry, New Hanover County needs to simplify regulation and extend utility services to more industrial sites -- both actions that are high on the coalition's priority list.
To generate its rankings for its 15th annual list, Forbes considered 12 metrics for each of the 200 largest MSAs in the country, according to the publication’s website. Much of the data came from Moody’s Analytics, Forbes stated.
Here are other statistics Forbes reported for the Wilmington MSA:
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