A recent study that measures Gross Domestic Product (GDP), new business launches and new building permits puts Johnson County among the best-performing counties in Iowa.
Conducted by SmartAsset, a financial technology company which measures every state in the country by these metrics each year, the study ranks Johnson County fourth in GDP Growth and fifth in new building permits.
Johnson County ranked fifth in overall incoming investment, behind first place Dallas County. Rounding out the rest of the top five was Warren County, Polk County and Fremont County.
A closer look at Johnson County’s investment activity finds that they had $2,420 GDP growth (in millions), 19.2 building permits (per 1,000 homes) and 1.5% business growth. The county is ranked number 403 nationally.
Linn County ranked 11th in the state for incoming investment, largely due to its second place finish in GDP Growth. They were responsible for $4,118 GDP Growth (in millions). Polk County was the clear number one, coming in at $9,763 growth (in millions).
Methodology
Number of new business launches was calculated by finding the change in the number of businesses established in each location over a three year period.
For GDP growth, SmartAsset used real growth (inflation adjusted). To measure real estate growth, they calculated the number of new building permits per 1,000 homes.
Each county was scored on those three ratings and combined for a final incoming investment index score, according to the news report.
An interactive map and dashboard can be found on SmartAsset’s website.
