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.
“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.”
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 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.”
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.