Report: Bend ranks as the nation’s second fastest-growing city

But the data predates COVID-19's impacts

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A new report out Monday from the personal finance website WalletHub finds Bend to be the second-fastest growing city in America, based on a variety of factors beyond population, including topping the list in job growth and growth in the number of businesses.

The report on 2020’s Fastest-Growing Cities in America comes with a major caveat – the data is mostly for the years 2013 to 2019, before the dramatic economic and other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But recent real estate data makes clear that at least in terms of home sales and the record median price paid, Bend remains very popular, with all the tradeoffs of housing affordability and growth's impact on the quality of life.

To determine where the most rapid local economic growth occurred over a period of seven years, WalletHub said it compared 515 U.S. cities across 17 key metrics. The data set ranges from population growth to college-educated population growth to unemployment rate decrease. In addition, WalletHub produced a separate ranking by city size.

In the overall list, Bend is behind only Fort Myers, Florida, and ahead of Meridian, Idaho, Milpitas, California and Enterprise, Nevada.

Economic Growth in Bend (1=Fastest-Growing; 258=Avg.):

• 11^th – Population Growth
• 43^rd – Median Household Income Growth
• 1^st – Job Growth
• 263^rd – Poverty Rate Decrease
• 10^th – Regional GDP Growth
• 163^rd – Unemployment Rate Decrease
• 1^st – Growth in Number of Businesses
• 11^th – Working-Age Population Growth
• 87^th – Median House Price Growth

Bend ranks 2^nd overall and 1^st in terms of midsize-city (100K to 300K population) growth.