Forbes: Raleigh is America's #2 Fastest Growing City in 2014

By Erin Carlyle of Forbes

When New York-based research firm Ipreo was looking to expand into a new office, the company searched nation-wide for the perfect location. “The primary goal was access to talent,” says O’Hara Macken, an EVP and managing director, “and the [Research] Triangle was our top choice in the U.S.” Ipreo, which provides data, software, and intelligence to the capital markets and public companies, opened an outpost in Raleigh, N.C. last year. It moved 70 employees from New York and Bethseda, Md., hired 80 locals, and plans to hire 100 more.

Raleigh, N. C. is growing at a healthy clip–fast enough to land  the No. 2 spot on our annual list of America’s Fastest-Growing Cities. At the nearby Research Triangle Park, more than 170 companies have outposts, including IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Syngenta, Credit Suisse, and Cisco. The wider area is also home to several major universities: North Carolina State University is in Raleigh, while Duke University is situated in nearby Durham, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The combination of universities and job opportunities has made for a highly educated population: nearly 50% of people ages 25 to 65 have a college degree. These draws keep many grads in the local area, says Harvey Schmitt, chief executive of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve got great quality of life. You’ve got the university system, great health care, a decent climate year-round, and affordable cost-of-living.

Those factors, plus a relatively low cost of doing business (FORBES ranks N.C. 4th on its list of Best States for Business) are attracting more companies to the area. MetLife recently opened a 1,300-employee IT campus in Cary, a western suburb, and software company Citrix is opening a campus in Raleigh’s downtown later this year. Raleigh is also a hub of smart grid activity, and the president recently announced a $140 million grant to create an advanced manufacturing institute to NC State. Raleigh’s jobs grew at a rate of 2.44% year-over-year while the population jumped an estimated 2.15% in 2013. Even faster population growth is expected in 2014. All of this was enough to push Raleigh up two spots from its slot last year, to rank No. 2.

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