Ocala was ranked 36 out of 200 of the best economic performing, large metropolitan areas in the United States, according to a new report that measures labor market conditions, high-tech growth, and access to economic opportunities.
The Milken Institute’s 2025 Best Performing Cities report was published on January 14, ranking Raleigh, North Carolina as the-performing large city and Gainesville, Georgia, as the best-performing small city.
The rankings feature 372 metropolitan statistical areas and 31 metropolitan divisions that are divided into 200 “large” and 203 “small cities,” with separate rankings for each category.
Large and small metros are divided into five tiers based on their respective performance, with top-ranking metropolitan areas in Tier 1 and bottom-ranking areas in Tier 5.
The top tier of the best-performing small cities list is comprised of 15 different cities, largely from the southeastern United States. The Villages, which is directly south of Ocala, was ranked 11th on the list.
The Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Ocala and Marion County, was not ranked on the small cities list, however.
Instead, Ocala was ranked 36th among the large cities, taking on other Floridian markets like Orlando and Miami, as well as many other large MSAs around the country.
Ocala’s rank of 36 on the 2025 list follows rankings of 57 in 2024 and 54 in 2023. The city was positioned virtually in the middle of the Tier 2 rankings in the large cities, just ahead of Cape Coral/Fort Myers (#38) and Deltona/Daytona Beach/Ormond Beach (#40).
From 2018 to 2023, the city of Ocala ranked 16th in job growth and 11th in wage growth. During the same time span, the city ranked a little lower in several categories, including broadband access (#130) and high technology concentration (#190).
In an effort to improve internet services, last week, the Ocala City Council approved a contract to begin additional underground conduit installation services to expand the offering from Ocala Fiber Network.
Published annually since 1999, the report reflects “cities’ effectiveness at leveraging their resources to promote economic growth and provide their residents with access to essential services and infrastructure needed for success.”
“The index is based on job creation, wage growth, and the high-tech sectors output growth,” reads a statement from the report. The report also measures access to economic opportunities, citing “housing affordability and broadband coverage.”
According to the institute, the 2025 index is largely based on data from 2023, which is the most recent year of data available. During that year, the US labor market added over 2.8 million jobs across metropolitan areas, accounting for 88.2% of all new jobs in the country.
According to the institute, this year’s index measured 13 metrics that fall into three categories: labor market performance, high-tech impact, and access to economic opportunities.
The report suggests that labor market performance includes short and medium-term indicators of trends in employment and wages.
“High-tech impact captures the presence and growth of key industries with a high concentration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM) workers, and access to economic opportunities reflects cities ability to remain attractive to residents by providing access to services, and building inclusive and sustainable social structures,” reads the report.
According to the institute, this year’s list reflects a trend in the rising performance of “relatively less populous big metropolitan areas.” The organization says this year’s top 10 large areas only included three metros with more than 1 million residents, marking a clear change from earlier years when half or more of the top 10 large MSAs had a population of more than 1 million residents.
“Changing population patterns have benefited small metros, which tend to have lower housing prices and a more egalitarian distribution of income,” reads the report. “Since 2018, small metropolitan areas have been attracting domestic movers, while large metros have seen a net outflow of domestic migration,” according to the report.
That tends to run contrary to what has been experienced in Ocala, with U-Haul recently saying the city ranked atop its list of fastest-growing metropolitan areas.
Last year, the United States Census Bureau produced a report confirming that the Ocala/Marion County area was ranked in the top 10 fastest growing areas in the country.
To read the complete rankings, visit the Milken Institute online.