New Haven leads on economic index, Hartford catches Stamford

By Alexander Soule of the New Haven Register

New Haven led Connecticut cities for economic momentum in 2018, according to a newly updated index that ranks municipalities by a handful of measures including employment, personal income and new business establishments.

North Stonington led all Connecticut municipalities a second straight year on a Connecticut town economic index published Tuesday by the state Department of Labor, with nearby Groton tops among smaller cities with less than 100,000 people.

Among the five largest cities with populations above that threshold, Hartford edged ahead of Stamford despite comparatively high unemployment in the state capital, and with the latter city undergoing a building boom downtown and in Stamford’s Harbor Point district that continues to draw renters and commercial tenants.

Bridgeport finished slightly behind Waterbury as the lowest performing major city in Connecticut.
The DOL index omits several major determinants of any municipality’s overall prosperity — notably to include grand-list property tax totals and any changes that capture the value of new residential and commercial developments which can contribute to a town’s economic base.

The data snapshot results in the index lumping towns together that have widely divergent economic bases. For instance, Ansonia and Westport are near the bottom rung despite median income in Westport roughly quadruple that of Ansonia and the Gold Coast town home to several major corporate employers including the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.

But the data is useful to showcase year-over-year gains in any single municipality, though reliance on estimates can skew those trends as well. Union was the runaway gainer on this year’s installment of the DOL index, with Kent and Bethel leading western Connecticut and East Haven tops among smaller cities for overall improvement.

Speaking last week in Hartford, Gov. Ned Lamont noted the potential impact on municipalities for a “debt diet” he is instituting with accompanying reductions in spending that the state has funneled to cities and towns in the past.

“Prioritized progress (means) don’t increase a lot of bonding, but prioritize at the expense of other capital items -- be that education, be that affordable housing,” Lamont said. “We’ve got to figure out … how much of that is going to be on the backs of taxpayers, how much of that is going to be on the company credit card, so to speak.”