Texas cities led the nation for the fastest growing municipal economies last year, according to the Commerce Department’s latest gross domestic product data (GDP), the Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the Journal, half of the 16 metro areas where the economy grew at 6 percent or higher were in Texas. The cities in Texas with the largest GDP increases were Midland with 24.1 percent growth, San Angelo with 11.4 percent growth, and Dallas with 8.5 percent growth.
Other non-Texan cities that ranked high for economic growth were Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Greeley, Colorado.
"The common theme among those regions is energy," states the Journal. "Natural resources and mining, which includes oil and gas extraction, was a relatively small contributor to growth, on average, in U.S. metro areas."
"But for areas leading overall growth, it was among the biggest drivers," the article states. "For example, in Greeley, natural resources and mining accounted for over a third of the area’s total economic growth."
There were 282 metropolitan areas that advanced in 2014, out of a total of 381, which means that 99—or 26 percent—did not grow economically.
"Washington, D.C., was the slowest-growing large metro area, with the economy there advancing 0.3% in 2014 after failing to grow in 2013," states the Journal.