These Are the Cities That Can Show Us How to Create Jobs

As a newly re-elected President Obama reminded Americans early Wednesday morning, creating jobs and getting the economy back on track are the nation's top priorities. To better understand what actually works to get the economy moving again, the administration should look at the nation's most successful cities and metro areas. As TIME's Rana Foroohar predicted in September, with the election behind us, we may start to see a shift away from the stale "tax cut" versus "stimulus" debate to a new economic policy paradigm where cities in effect "become the petri dishes in which we do different growth experiments."

A recent analysis of competitiveness and job growth across U.S. metros conducted by Economic Modeling Specialists could not be more timely. It provides a detailed assessment of the metros that have generated the most robust job growth based on "unique regional factors rather than national trends." To do so, it conducted a shift-share analysis of employment trends for the 100 largest U.S. metros for the period 2010 to 2012. Shift-share analysis, the study notes, helps "distinguish between growth that is primarily based on big national forces (the proverbial 'rising tide lifts all boats' analogy) vs. local competitive advantages." Its regional competitiveness assessment is based on subtracting the the number of jobs expected for each metro (or MSA) based on national economic trends from the region's total jobs, adding that: