Bowling Green saw its standing improve as a city creating new, higher-quality jobs in a report released this week.

The Milken Institute, an economic think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif., ranked the Bowling Green metropolitan statistical area 33rd out of 124 small cities in its Best Performing Cities 2008 index.

The annual report is the result of a collaboration with Greenstreet Real Estate Partners and measures the performance of the 200 largest American metropolitan areas as well as selected smaller cities in several categories - including five-year job growth from 2002-07; job growth from 2006-07; wage growth from 2001-06 and from 2005-06; and concentration of high-tech jobs.

The Milken Institute relied on information from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for its report, plugging available data into a formula to determine each city’s ranking.

Bowling Green jumped to 33rd this year in the small city category, up from 46th in the institute’s 2007 report.

Provo, Utah, earned the institute’s top ranking among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, while Midland, Texas, snagged the top spot among small cities.

Economists working on the report analyzed U.S. cities to determine which ones are most successful at creating and sustaining jobs, and this year’s results are placed in the context of an economy marked by weak job growth, a stalled housing market and a falling dollar.

“The U.S. economy slowed to a crawl, at best, though it is more likely that the nation actually entered a mild recession in 2008,” the report states. “These factors will further change the patterns of economic growth around the country and will surely impact next year’s rankings.”

Cities that performed well in this report typically had a high concentration of jobs in the tech sector or had significant oil and gas production and exploration activities.

The falling value of the dollar ended up benefiting port cities that were able to stimulate their economies through increased imports.

Armen Bedroussian, a research economist with the Milken Institute, said that cities that created jobs in high-paying sectors such as defense, biotechnology, aerospace, computer and software manufacturing and telecommunications improved their standings significantly from the previous year.

Bowling Green registered above-average performance in job growth and wage and salary growth from year to year, though it performed slightly below average in the amount of growth in the technology sector.

“In the case of Bowling Green, it’s not really known as a high-tech community and there are not as many high-tech industries in the metro area,” Bedroussian said. “It was able to move up in the rankings due to gains in population growth from year to year. A lot of times when you have significant population growth, it creates a demand for service-oriented industries such as health care and education.”

The addition of jobs in administrative and support services industries also improved Bowling Green’s position, as did a relatively low cost of living and fewer home foreclosures compared to other cities.

Jim Hizer, president of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, said that this report, along with Forbes Magazine’s recent ranking of Bowling Green as 12th among the best small places for business and careers, reinforces that industrial leaders see the area as an attractive place to locate new businesses.

“We’ve been working to promote economic development efforts in the southcentral Kentucky region for the last few years, and those efforts are starting to generate results,” Hizer said, citing DESA’s recent decision to relocate several jobs at its Bowling Green plant back from China.

Bowling Green Mayor Elaine Walker said that continued economic growth relies on the collaboration of local government officials, the chamber, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green Technical College and regional leaders.

Walker said that while the region benefits from its relationship with the automotive industry through the GM Bowling Green Assembly plant, diversifying the economy through additional tech jobs will be important for the future, citing the steps taken toward that goal by Western Kentucky University’s Innovation and Commercialization Center.

“The ICC is helping us create high-tech businesses and is very active in trying to build a quality work force in that sector,” Walker said. “I do think the report speaks volumes about what we have been doing to attract not only quality businesses, but also quality residents and employees.

Elsewhere in Kentucky, among the 200 largest metropolitan areas, Lexington-Fayette County was ranked 122nd, Louisville-Jefferson County was ranked 131st and the Ashland-Huntington, W.Va., metro area was ranked 153rd.

— To learn more about the report, visit www.bestcities.milkeninstitute.org.