SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — A recent data study from SmartAsset ranked Spokane Valley as No. 31 on a list of the most rapidly growing cities in the United States.
Spokane Valley is tied with Orem, Utah based on population change, average yearly gross domestic product (GDP) growth, housing growth and unemployment rates.
Spokane Valley is not the only Inland Northwest city to be ranked in this new study. According to SmartAsset’s list, there are many up-and-coming cities in the Northwest, with six of them ranked in the top ten. These cities include Nampa and Meridian in Idaho, Bend, Oregon, and Vancouver, Bellingham and Seattle in Western Washington.
City of Spokane Valley spokesperson Jeff Kleingartner sees this as an honor.
"We're excited to hear that we landed there and it is also exciting as a region, you know, that six of the top ten boom towns in the country are in the Northwest," Kleingartner said.
According to the survey, the past five years have seen a nearly 9% growth in businesses in Spokane. Kleingartner said that's due to multiple reasons.
"The combination of skilled labor, we have a major interstate nearby, we have two class-one railroads, low traffic and streamline permitting process, available land," Kleingartner said.
The Valley looks like it will continue to grow, as well. One venue looking to open its doors in the coming years is the $36 million Spokane Valley Performing Arts Center.
According to its Managing Director Marnie Rorholm, the future opening of the performing arts and events center won't just be good for those performing.
"This is going to be great for our hotels and for tourism and for retail. And it's just a real boom to the economy," Rorholm said. "We can tell already because our shows sell so well even for summer theater."
In five years, Spokane Valley also saw an 8.63% increase in establishments and an 11.34% growth rate in housing. As of August 2021, the unemployment rate in Spokane Valley is 4.5%.
Most of the data in this study comes from the Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns Survey and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In August 2021, Realtor.com named Spokane Valley one of the 50 hottest US housing markets by ZIP code in 2021. The ZIP code 99206, which includes the Dishman, Millwood and Trentwood areas, came in at No. 46.