People make investments every day—and not just on Wall Street. Investment into a local community can come in the form of a person choosing to open a business or build a home in a given location. It can be when the federal government supports a local project with contracts or people of a town support the local economy by spending money.
To find out which communities across the country are seeing the greatest amount of incoming investment, New York-based financial technology company SmartAsset recently completed its third annual study on counties receiving the greatest amount of incoming investment.
The study measured each county on the following data: business establishment growth, GDP growth, new building permits and federal contracts. Take a look at the table below to see where Hillsborough County ranked and how other counties stacked up against it:
Rank |
County |
Business Growth |
GDP Growth ($ in millions) |
New Building Permits (per 1,000 homes) |
Federal Funding (per capita) |
Incoming Investment Index |
1 |
Rockingham |
2.0% |
$637 |
8.6 |
$901 |
32.96 |
2 |
Hillsborough |
2.2% |
$724 |
6.6 |
$2,360 |
31.15 |
3 |
Strafford |
2.7% |
$172 |
6.5 |
$154 |
30.61 |
4 |
Carroll |
0.9% |
$122 |
6.0 |
$22 |
28.49 |
5 |
Belknap |
1.0% |
$118 |
5.3 |
$147 |
27.77 |
6 |
Cheshire |
-0.1% |
$126 |
5.7 |
$75 |
27.38 |
7 |
Grafton |
-2.3% |
$188 |
4.8 |
$770 |
24.78 |
8 |
Merrimack |
-1.5% |
$266 |
3.9 |
$239 |
24.36 |
9 |
Sullivan |
-3.7% |
$60 |
2.4 |
$9,947 |
22.11 |
10 |
Coos |
-3.9% |
$57 |
3.1 |
$58 |
21.22 |
For a more information on the study and methodology, click here.