Top Ten Manufacturing Exurban Areas

Of the 3,132 counties in the United States, the U.S. Commerce Dept.'s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) identifies 827 as "metropolitan" and groups them together into 315 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Through commuting flows and newspaper circulations, the BEA also links the remaining 2,305 counties to specific MSAs. The exurban area data in this report reflects manufacturing activity in these non-MSA counties. When IndustryWeek and Cleveland State University ranked the exurban areas by the same five-component index that was applied to the metropolitan areas, the 10 exurban areas listed in the table below came out on top. For the three-year period from 1993-1996, exurban manufacturing employment grew 5.6%, double the metropolitan job growth rate.