Rockford Compares Well To All-American Average

The Rockford area is well within the top 10 percent of metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, nationwide when it comes to reflecting the average American community.

The Forest City and its surrounding area ranked 35^th out of 379 of the largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and 14^th out of 164 similarly medium-sized MSAs in comparison to the national average.

That’s better than the Peoria area, which used to be considered the typical American community. Peoria came in at 73 in the medium-sized category and 140 overall.

The study was compiled by WalletHub, where a panel of six economists and researchers reviewed the numbers in four major categories to determine which are closest to the statistical average nationwide.

They used four categories:

• Sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, race, household and family makeup, and country of origin.
• Housing factors such as percentage of renters, home sizes and costs, and the vacancy rate.
• Economic factors such as household income, percentage in poverty, unemployment, and breakdown of employment categories
• Education factors such as percentage of school enrollment by school type and highest level of education attained.

Rockford ranked ninth overall in sociodemographics, 57^th in housing characteristics, 93rd in education, and 130^th in economic characteristics.

The Quad Cites ranked 106 among medium-sized areas and 216 overall.

The Ottawa-Peru area came in at 113 out of 163 small MSAs, and 289 overall.

North of the border, the Whitewater-Elkhorn area was 10^th among small MSAs but 84^th overall. The Janesville-Beloit MSA landed at 26 on the small MSA list and135^th place overall.

The Chicago area ranked 20^th among the 52 large MSAs and 33^rd on the overall list. Just a little ways up the Lake Michigan shoreline, the Milwaukee area was five spots above Chicago on the large MSA list and nine places above the Windy City overall.

Number one overall -- and in the large MSA group -- was the Indianapolis metropolitan area, and The Villages in Florida came in at the very bottom overall and in the small MSA category.

Charleston, N.C., topped the 164 medium-sized MSAs, with McAllen, Tex., at the bottom of that group.

Racine, Wis., was ranked best in among the small MSAs.