WASHINGTON — There are many ways to measure success, and by the metrics career resources site Zippia used, Vienna came out on top of its list of “The 10 Most Successful Cities in Virginia.”
Zippia used a set of criteria from the Census Bureau’s 2010-2014 American Community Survey, focused specifically on poverty levels, median household incomes and employment rates.
“Median household income is the most digestible way to understand how wealthy a place really is. Unemployment rate tries to capture the prospects for more people to become rich. And finally, if more people are employed, the brighter and more successful that place’s future looks,” Zippia writes.
The site collected data for all 62 cities in Virginia with populations over 5,000 people and ranked them based on its short list of criteria, and then averaged those rankings to come up with a “success score.”
Vienna, with a population of 16,173, came out on top with a median household income of $133,776, a poverty level of 3.2 percent and an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent.
Purcellville, Falls Church, Leesburg and Herndon fell right behind Vienna.
Emporia, Virginia, ranks as the state’s least-successful city, with a median household income of $30,240, a poverty rate of 30 percent and an unemployment rate of 17.2 percent.
You can see how Zippia ranks all 62 Virginia cities for success at their website.
