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Don't mess with Lee County.
At least not when it comes to cities with the fastest-growing economies nationwide.
The county scored three towns — Lehigh Acres, Fort Myers and Cape Coral — in the top 15 of a recent WalletHub survey that ranks the fastest growing cities in the country. Lehigh Acres is No. 3, Fort Myers is No. 7 and Cape Coral is No. 15. More good news: Fort Myers, the study found, experienced the highest decrease in poverty rate among every city nationwide, at 2.92%. The city also tied, with Frisco, Texas, for the No. 1 overall spot in job growth.
The study compared 515 cities based on 15 key measures of both growth and decline over a period of seven years, according to a statement. The data set ranged from population growth to unemployment rate decrease to growth in regional GDP per capita, the release adds.
WalletHub analysts then broke the data down into two dimensions, socio-demographics and jobs/economy. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the fastest economic growth. The study, lastly, determined each city's weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score, and then used the resulting scores to rank the cities.
Lehigh Acres ranked No. 3 in socio-demographics and No. 65 in jobs and economy; Fort Myers ranked No. 8 and No. 10, respectively, and Cape Coral ranked No. 24 and No. 21.
Other Florida cities that made the top 50 of the WalletHub list include Boynton Beach, at No. 19 overall; Orlando at No. 32; Davie at No. 43 and Spring Hill at No. 46.
For cities in the west coast of Florida, Tampa ranked No. 91; St. Petersburg ranked No. 157; Lakeland ranked No. 208; Brandon ranked No. 238; and Clearwater ranked No. 359.
While those cities posted some middling results, it least those towns aren't Shreveport, La., or Jacksonville, N.C. Those two cities ranked last in the report.
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