The Greater Memphis Chamber says that Memphis’s nine peer cities are New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, Louisville, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Nashville, St. Louis, and Kansas City.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Peer City Identification Tool has lists of its own and they are significantly different.

It develops it peer tool as a “data comparison and visualization instrument that can help policymakers and practitioners understand a municipality in the context of peer cities.” “Drawing on city-level indicators from the American Community Survey and historical Decennial Census records, the PCIT performs a cluster analysis to identify groups of similar cities along economic, demographic, social, and housing dimensions.” The full dataset includes 960 places in the U.S.

Four Themes

The four themes are Equity, Affordability, Resilience, and Outlook. 

  • Equity addresses questions regarding inclusion, access, and diversity using the wage-based Gini coefficient, race and ethnicity-based dissimilarity indices, changes in poverty levels, and educational attainment. City leaders cited challenges of creating and implementing inclusive growth strategies that attract new businesses and jobs to their cities, while creating policies that allow marginalized populations to benefit from these new opportunities. The PCIT uses the wage-based Gini coefficient (as opposed to the income-based coefficient more frequently used) to focus on wage-earning workers who have been employed for the full year.
  • Resilience speaks to issues related to economic diversification by considering current conditions and trends in manufacturing employment, labor force participation, and unemployment. Many cities experienced economic shocks during the Great Recession, but had experienced decline along these measures during the preceding decades as well. Economic diversification and labor force conditions provide broad insights into areas of vulnerability and strength.
  • Outlook explores signs of a city’s demographic and economic future by incorporating immigration, family composition, age structure and changes in total population. The age distribution of a population, net migration, and family composition provide clues about a city’s future. Cities experiencing unusual demographic shifts may look to peers undergoing similar shifts, and identify common non-demographic factors such as employment and educational opportunities.
  • Housing speaks to issues of affordability by incorporating data relating to home ownership (income-to-home value ratio and homeownership rate) and renting (rent burden), the quality and competitiveness of housing stock by using the age of housing as a proxy, and housing vacancies. Providing competitive housing affordable and attractive to both renters and buyers was a primary discussion point among surveyed community leaders. Demand for housing is captured indirectly by the vacancy rate and the age of housing stock, while the relationship between homeownership, rent burdens and housing affordability can be associated with broader economic conditions in a city.

Each of the cities included in each of the categories has the data points associated with it.

Equity peer cities

To consider the equity peer cities, the factors are Hispanic-white dissimilarity index, poverty rate, change in poverty rate 2000-2024, wage-based Gini coefficient, change in equality index 2008-2014, percent white, percent with a bachelor’s degree.

The peer cities in the Memphis equity peer group are:

  • Alexandria, LA
  • Birmingham, AL
  • Buffalo, NY
  • Milwaukee, WI
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • Rochester, NY
  • Shreveport, LA

Resilience Peer Cities

To determine the resilience peer cities, the factors are unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, change in labor force participation rate, change in labor force participation rate, labor share of manufacturing, change in labor share of manufacturing 1970-2024, median family income, change in median family income 2000-2024, and share of metropolitan area population.

Memphis’s peer cities in resilience area:

  • Altoona, PA
  • Richmond County, GA (Augusta)
  • Beaumont, TX
  • Birmingham, AL
  • Columbus, GA
  • Goldsboro, NC
  • Greenville, NC
  • Kingsport, TN
  • Mobile, AL
  • Roanoke, VA
  • Springfield, MA
  • Texarkana, TX
  • Utica, NY,
  • Williamsport, PA

Outlook Peer Cities

Peer cities in outlook are determined by percent of foreign born, percent change in population 2000-2024, percent of families with children, percent of population 20-64, total population, and share of metropolitan area population.

Memphis’s peer cities in outlook are:

  • Detroit, MI
  • El Paso, TX
  • Indianapolis, IN
  • Milwaukee, WI
  • Oklahoma City, OK

Housing Peer Cities

Housing peer cities are determined by percent of housing units built pre-1980, vacancy rate, home value to income ratio, homeownership rate, percent rent-burdened households, and share of metropolitan population.

Memphis’s peer cities in housing are:

  • Atlanta, GA
  • Dallas, TX
  • Goldsboro, NC
  • Hattiesburg, MS
  • Houston, TX
  • Knoxville, TN
  • Lynchburg, VA
  • Manhattan, KS
  • Rome, GA
  • Savannah, GA

Under each city is data relevant to it and the variables between peer cities can be converted into a graph or chart.  

Peer cities and peer regions are always up for debate but it’s always useful to see ourselves as others see us, particularly a source as authoritative as the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

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