The Des Moines–West Des Moines metropolitan area ranked No. 100 in the Milken Institute’s 2026 Best-Performing Cities (BPC) Index, placing it in Tier 3 of 5, where Tier 1 is the highest rank. The annual index ranks 411 U.S. metropolitan areas using 13 indicators that measure job and wage growth, high-tech industry performance, housing affordability, broadband access and community resilience. For the Des Moines–West Des Moines metro area, the report shows 7% job growth from 2019 to 2024 and 1.2% job growth from 2023 to 2024, with short-term job growth at -0.6%. Wages in the metro grew 32.7% over the five-year period and 3.5% year over year, while high-tech GDP increased 55.9% from 2019 to 2024 and 6.5% from 2023 to 2024. The metro posted a high-tech location quotient of…..