The overall economic growth in rural communities across America’s is on-par with large, legacy cities but they are not growing at the same rate as the mid-sized urban markets located in the same state. However, these rural markets are sizable and capable of serving a range of corporate site location projects. Measures of a region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the best measure of overall economic growth in a region. The rural markets in these target states in the aggregate illustrate large economies with
- Rural Michigan’s GDP in 2018 at $95,565,721,000,
- Rural Ohio’s GDP in 2018 at $123,374,341,000,
- Rural North Carolina’s GDP in 2018 at $124,712,132,000, and
- Rural Missouri’s GDP in 2018 at $87,072,965,000.
These are substantial economic markets. In fact, these rural markets are close to the same size of the urban markets of, Cleveland whose MSA’s GDP is $119,327,107,000, the Columbus MSA’s GDP is $114,675,302,000, the Kansas City MSA’s GDP is $120,352,988,000, the St. Louis MSA’s GDP is $152,060,042,000, and the Charlotte MSA’s GDP is $146,813,931,000. The Detroit MSA has a much larger GDP of $238,679,503,000. As the table below illustrates, over a 10-year timeframe, counties in rural Ohio are growing economically the faster than rural communities in Missouri and North Carolina. Rural Michigan has also illustrated strong growth comparable with the growth of the large Detroit metro market. However, most rural markets are not keeping space are growing their economy at a slower pace than the mid-sized urban markets in their own state at a similar level as the table below illustrates comparing rural Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio with urban markets in those states.
Ohio’s substantial rural development has been driven the last 10 years by the capture of oil and natural gas as part of the shale energy explosion in eastern and southeastern Ohio.
