America's Second Richest City Is ... Midland?

By Eric Nicholson Tue., Nov. 27 2012 at 3:53 PM

Yep. You're looking at the downtown of America's second richest metropolis.

Writing in the Atlantic today, Derek Thompson reports from recently released data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that Midland -- not Washington, D.C. or San Francisco, but a 110,000-person speck of dust out in West Texas -- is the country's second richest city, per capita. It might well be first if Bridgeport, Connecticut, didn't have quite so many New York hedge fund billionaires. Dallas didn't even make the top 20.

It doesn't take much to figure out why Midland's rich: It's practically swimming in petroleum and gas. Always has been. But it hasn't always been so flush. Look no further than the 1980s, when Midland and the rest of West Texas were reeling from a humongous oil bust.

What's revived the town and propelled it to the top of the per capita income list, is, in a word, fracking. Midland has been riding the crest of the natural gas drilling boom, enjoying an unemployment rate of 3 percent and the enviable problem, of having too few homes to house workers. StateImpact Texas reports that sales at the local BMW dealership are up 50 percent.

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DOCensors

We could close the gap a bit by moving the DO office to Midland

Vndallas

Isn't that the Fort Worth skyline?

TheCredibleHulk topcommenter

Here's a question: If a new-money oil tycoon buys his wife an 8-Series Beemer in the middle of nowhere with nobody around to see it, is it still pretentious?

ChrisYu topcommenter

1 Like

'Dustbowl Dubai' kinda catchy eh?no?never mind

ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul topcommenter

@ChrisYu No way ... Midland is way prettier and nicer than Dubai, but then again, that doesn't say very much ...

observist topcommenter

@ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul @ChrisYu No way - at least in Dubai you can look at the ocean and a couple amazing buildings. In Midland you got... what?

ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul topcommenter

2 Like

@observist @ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul @ChrisYu

A cold beer within walking distance ...

ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul topcommenter

Dear Lord: Please let there be one more boom. I promise not to pi$$ it away this time.

Please don't tell my Mom that I work in the oil patch. She thinks that I am a piano player in a whore house.

The oil and gas industry is the most drug riddled industry in the world. Just go out to any rig and there is a pusher. The joints are twenty feet long and the dope comes in five gallon buckets. And at least a couple of times a day, the crew is tripping out.

TheCredibleHulk topcommenter

@ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul

*ahhhhhhhh* ..tell me again about the twenty foot joints, daddy... *drifts off to sleep*

anon

So the Bridgeport MSA listed as the wealthiest is the entire area of Fairfield county in CT, which includes 23 towns, plus the city of Stamford? Makes the whole exercise seem even more worthless than it already was.