Great news! Buena Park's corrupt politicians have not stopped it from becoming the 11th fastest growing city in the United States—that's fastest in population and economic growth, according to financial site NerdWallet.com.
Er … uh … or perhaps not. Because a competing site, WalletHub.com, claims to have used pretty much the same methodology for its survey, which concludes Buena Park is the 286th fastest growing city in the land.
NerdWallet says its “America's Fastest Growing Cities” list is based on census, job and income data from more than 500 of the nation's largest cities between 2009 and '13. WalletHub makes the same claim but from 2008-'13.
During '09-'13, Buena Park experienced a 5.62 percent increase in working-age population, a .63 percent bump in the employment rate and a 30.10 percent hike in earnings growth, according to NerdWallet, which has the city of Knott's Berry Farm fame sandwiched between Gainesville, Florida, at No. 10 and Midland, Texas, at No. 12.
The site has Boulder, Colorado, as the No. 1 in fastest growth in the land. Their top California city is Hemet at No. 8. The only other Cali cities besides Hemet and Buena Park in the top 20 are Redwood City at No. 13 and Folsom at No. 19. California tied Texas with having the most cities in the top 20 (four each).
From '08-'13, Mission, Texas, was the fastest growing, claims the WalletHub survey. The first California city to make their list is East Los Angeles at No. 10. (East LA is unincorporated but a census-designated place.)
Bakersfield (29), Fremont (35), Redwood City (37), Santa Clara (43), Indio (58), Clovis (65), Oakland (78), Manteca (81) and San Jose (87) all rank higher on the WalletHub list before one comes to the first Orange County city: Costa Mesa at No. 88. And the site also has three other OC cities—Santa Ana (224), Lake Forest (237) and Irvine (271)—ranking ahead of Buena Park.
Now I wonder which survey the West Orange County Regional Chamber of Commerce in Buena Park will point folks to?
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.