Oxford, Columbus in Nation’s Top 25

COLUMBUS, Miss. – A new national ranking confirms Northeast Mississippi is a great place to invest and do business.
Oxford ranks 11th, Columbus 24th and Tupelo 56th in Policom’s ranking of the economic strength and potential of 576 communities nationwide with populations under 100,000.

Columbus and Oxford both jumped 22 spots from last year’s rankings while Tupelo climbed nine spots.

Columbus continued a staggering climb over since 2004 when it ranked 374th in the country. Oxford ranked 14th 10 years ago and Tupelo ranked 18th but both dropped significantly before starting to rebound.

Vicksburg and Meridian edged into the top 150 towns. Starkville’s is 190th, Corinth is 257th and West Point is 369th.

“Lowndes County has been a gold standard of a community supportive of economic development, and these numbers reflect that,” said Joe Higgins, chief executive officer of the Golden Triangle Development LINK. “As we continue to work regionally, we anticipate Clay and Oktibbeha counties to begin their ascent on the POLICOM rankings.

POLICOM annually ranks the 366 Metropolitan Statistical Areas and 576 Micropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States for “economic strength,” to enable POLICOM to study the characteristics of strong and weak economies in the country.

“The Columbus-Lowndes County economy has shown significant improvement over the last several years , and has been very successful in creating quality jobs for the residence in the area,” commented William Fruth, president of POLICOM Corporation.

The study measures 23 different economic factors over a twenty-year period to create the rankings.