Oklahoma City earns recognition

Real Estate Forum, a national commercial real estate trade magazine, named Oklahoma City as one of the “Top 10 Growth Markets,” among Austin, Texas; Dallas, Denver, Houston, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle and Silicon Valley. The magazine noted the natural gas business in Chesapeake Energy and Devon Energy, “an active wind and solar energy sector” and called the city a “growing biotechnology center, as well, with 44,000 workers” and “an aviation/aerospace hub.”

“For the fourth month in a row since its inception in August, the Sooner State's capital city topped the On Numbers Economic Index for November,” the magazine said. “The index, which ranks all 102 U.S. metro areas with a population greater than 500,000, cited Oklahoma City's growth rate, the third-fastest in the U.S. over the preceding 12 months; its unemployment tally of just 4.6 percent, the lowest of all major metro areas; its retail-sector job gains of 8.1 percent since 2007; and its home-value appreciation during the past five years, 2.9 percent, ranking it fifth among the nine metros in which single-family housing prices have actually improved.”