Last week McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey, published a new report titled The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow and Northern Colorado shows well.
MGI analyzed more than 3,000 counties and 315 cities in the United States and found they are on sharply different paths. They state “The health of local economies today will affect their ability to adapt and thrive in the face of the changes that lie ahead. The trends outlined in this report could widen existing disparities between high-growth cities and struggling rural areas, and between high-wage workers and everyone else.”
They sorted the counties and cities into multiple categories such as Megacities, High-growth hubs, Silver cities, and so on. Fort Collins-Loveland and Greeley was included in a group of 11 communities dubbed Small powerhouses. Other communities include Bend OR, Boise ID, Charleston, SC, Des Moines IA, Fayetteville AR, Midland TX, Provo UT, Reno NV, and Santa Rosa CA. According to MGI, “Small powerhouses…have built economic clusters around technology and other industries; they have the fastest economic growth rates and second-highest rate of net migration across our archetypes.”
There’s a lot in the report so I’m still reading it, but it’s worth a look if you are interested in some insights about the future prospects of the region.