Press Release: Texas, South Dakota Earn Site Selection Magazine’s Governor’s Cup Awards
6 Mar 2025
News
Top Metro and Micropolitan Areas for Corporate Facility Investment, Top Mississippi River Regions Also Named
Atlanta, March 1, 2024: Texas and South Dakota have won the 2023 Site Selection Governor’s Cups. This is the 10th year Site Selection recognizes the state with the most qualifying new and expanded facilities per capita, which South Dakota claims for the first time for its capital investment activity in 2023. Texas wins for the 12th straight time for having the most qualified projects of any state.
Top Metros and Micros
In this year’s Top Metros rankings, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin, was No. 1 for the 11th straight year among metro areas with populations over 1 million with 485 projects, while the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington region (452 projects) and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land region (413) finished 1-2 in the Tier 1 Top Metros Per Capita rankings. Houston finished second after not making the Top 10 Per Capita last year, while new entrants in the overall Top 10 included No. 7 Greater Phoenix and No. 9 Greater Indianapolis.
With 50 projects, the Lehigh Valley region of Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton ranks No. 1 among areas with populations between 200,000 and 1 million, just ahead of Dayton-Kettering, Ohio (47), while the Tier 2 Per Capita rankings are topped by Sioux Falls, South Dakota (23 projects), and Reno, Nevada (35). Among Tier-3 areas with populations between 50,000 and 200,000, Bowling Green, Kentucky (23 projects), finished first in front of Sioux City, Iowa-Nebraska-South Dakota (19 projects), with the two regions reversing that finish in the per-capita tally. Both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 rankings were replete with regions moving up from outside last year’s Top 10s.
In the magazine’s ranking of Top Micropolitans — cities of 10,000 to 50,000 people which cover at least one county — Findlay,Ohio , once again was tops among the nation’s 543 micropolitan areas, tallying 25 projects last year. Second place went to Cullman, Alabama (No. 3 last year), with Angola, Indiana, at No. 3, and then three communities finishing in a tie for fourth: Sidney, Ohio; Frankfort, Kentucky and Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Ohio and Georgia tied as the states with the most Top 100 Micropolitans, with 15 each. Ohio had five among the Top 10 and ties. Together, Ohio’s 15 micros tallied enough projects (97) to account for more than one-fifth of the state’s total. Indiana’s 13 Top Micros took third place.
Click here to read the complete press release and find out where Ozark, AL ranked.
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