The Danville Micropolitan area, which includes Boyle and Lincoln counties, has once again been highly ranked in Site Selection Magazine’s Top 100 Micropolitans for 2019.

The Danville micropolitan area was ranked third in Kentucky for new and expanding business activity in 2019. And it tied for 14th place, out of 542 similar communities in the U.S., with Plymouth, Indiana; Wilson, North Carolina; Fremont, Ohio; New Philadelphia-Dover, Ohio; and Sidney, Ohio, for landing five projects.

Mayfield, Kentucky Micro tied with Jefferson, Georgia Micro in fourth place in the nation with eight projects, according to the magazine.

Bardstown Micro has six projects for the year, which placed it in 11th place, along with Fremont, New England and Greenville, Ohio.

“SITE Selection magazine is the Wall Street Journal of the country’s economic development community,” said Develop Danville President and CEO Jodey Lassiter. “So, it is significant that the Danville Micropolitan is once again recognized for its new and expanding business activity in 2019. The Danville Micro has been ranked consistently among the top 15 high-performing micropolitan communities in the nation for nine of the last 11 years. This is a compelling testimonial about our regional economy’s health to potential businesses and investors.”

According to the story “Seize the Day” by Gary Daughters with Site Selection Magazine, “A micropolitan is a core-based statistical area, in this case a county, whose name derives from its core city of 10,000 to 50,000 residents.”

He writes, “modestly sized ‘contained economies’ focused around a single population center, America’s 542 micropolitans, as identified by the White House Office of Management and Budget, do provide a lens on small-town America. Cities identified as micropolitans tend to be older, less diverse and more blue-collar than the nation as a whole, with higher shares of workers employed in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, forestry, fishing and hunting. In 2000, people living in micros accounted for 9.2% of the U.S. population. By 2017, the micro population had shrunk to 8.4%.”