Municipal Excellence
The City of Spokane received the Association of Washington Cities 2016 Municipal Excellence Award in the category of Innovative Management. The awards recognize innovative projects that significantly improve the quality of life for citizens, establish partnerships, and build community support.
Local policies and investment strategies impact a city’s economic development potential. Spokane has done an excellent job targeting where to make public investments. These targeted investments allow for big impacts in certain geographic areas. More and more we are seeing the community get involved in these investments, from infrastructure to new business ventures.
Job Growth
The Spokane-Spokane Valley MSA jumped to #17 for 2016 for white collar job growth in the mid-sized city category. This is up 28 spots from #45 in 2015 and makes Spokane the highest ranked mid-sized city in WA state.
This is not only the largest high-wage segment of the economy, employing just under 20 million people at an average salary of $30 an hour, it’s also one the few high-wage sectors in which employment has expanded steadily since 2010, at more than 3% a year, adding nearly 3 million white-collar jobs.
New Geography generates its ranking system from a normalized, weighted summary index, consisting of: recent growth trends, mid-term growth, long-term momentum, current year growth, and the average of each year’s growth rate. The rankings include the metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) the Bureau of Labor Statistics track. Find out more at New Geography.