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Buffalo Ranks 4th In The World In Income Growth

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Buffalo posted one of the world's strongest records for income growth during the past two years, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.

The average income of Buffalo-area residents increased by 3.9 percent between 2010 and 2011, dwarfing the U.S. growth rate of 0.9 percent.

The corresponding difference of 3.0 percentage points was the fourth-best margin registered by any of 200 major metropolitan areas around the world.

The only places that outperformed Buffalo, says Brookings, were Houston (which surpassed its national income-growth rate by 4.7 points), Shenyang, China (3.4 points) and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (3.1 points).

Rochester ranked sixth in the international standings. Its income-growth rate of 3.3 percent was 2.4 points ahead of the national average.

The Brookings report noted that industrial centers in the so-called Rustbelt have actually outperformed Sunbelt metros since the onset of the recession.

"On income growth, six U.S. metro areas, including three manufacturing centers in the Great Lakes region (Buffalo, Detroit, and Rochester), ranked among the 10 metro areas that outpaced their nations by the largest margins," said the study.