Article Source: bizjournals.com | Published: Jan 3, 2025 | By Shaheer Naveed
Wichita has cracked the top 50 best-performing cities on the Milken Institute’s latest annual index that measures the economic vitality of 403 U.S. cities.
Continuing to climb out of a steep decline in recent years, Wichita landed 43rd on the ranking, which is 45 spots higher than last year and 111 spots higher than the year before.
The Milken Institute, a California-based economic research nonprofit, takes into consideration a range of factors to build its index, including jobs, wages, high-tech growth, housing affordability and household broadband access.
Wichita city manager Robert Layton said it’s the initiatives of the private sector that are “truly growing the economy” and boosting Wichita’s position on the index.
“I think it’s a great report card for how the community is doing in terms of its economic health,” he said. “… That says a lot about the health of our economy, the efforts of the private sector, the (Greater Wichita) Partnership, you know, our city and county governments, everyone that really contributes to making our regional economy strong.”
Among large cities with populations of at least 275,000, Raleigh, N.C. outperformed its peers at No. 1 on the Milken Institute’s ranking, followed by two Utah cities, Ogden and Salt Lake City.
Notably, Tulsa and Oklahoma City were among the five large cities with the biggest gains in the 2025 rankings, landing 86th and 58th.
Gainesville, Ga., was the best-performing among small cities.
The leap from 88th to 43rd placed Wichita among Milken’s Tier 2 cities in the 2025 ranking. Top-performing markets are considered Tier 1 cities, with bottom-performing cities in Tier 5.
The Milken Institute says a trend in recent years is the rise of modest-sized metro areas as more populous cities grapple with housing affordability. Wichita was 34th among cities in terms of housing affordability, according the report.
One of Wichita’s highest scores was its high-tech concentration rank (18th), which looks at the presence of STEM-related industries. The city’s GDP in that area has grown 11.9% between a five-year period from 2018 to 2023, the Milken Institute found.
The improvement, Layton said, is indicative of Wichita’s efforts to diversify its economy beyond aviation manufacturing and into technology and health care.
“It gave us points for having a cluster, which is aviation, which is kind of the core of our economy,” Layton said. “… One thing that’s not addressed here is what will happen to our numbers when the biomed center is open and we start to see all of those businesses and a new cluster start to hit Wichita. I’m really optimistic regarding our ability to diversify the economy even more when that happens.”
