ith the Census Bureau reporting that the South held 8 of the 15 cities with the largest population gains in 2017, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s Fastest-Growing Cities in America as well as accompanying videos.

To determine where the most rapid local economic growth occurred over a period of seven years, WalletHub compared 515 U.S. cities across 15 key metrics. The data set ranges from population growth to college-educated population growth to unemployment rate decrease. In addition, we produced a separate ranking by city size.

Some cities thrive even through hard economic times while others struggle. WalletHub said that they have used "data set ranges from population growth to unemployment rate decrease to growth in regional GDP per capita."  Additionally, the full report takes on data from household income or even the poverty rate and compare them with hundred of cities all across the US.

Here you can see some of the key notes of the report:

• Frisco, Texas, experienced the highest population growth, at 6.52 percent. Conversely, Albany, Georgia experienced the highest population decrease, at 1.51 percent.
• San Marcos, California, experienced the highest household income increase, at 9.95 percent. Conversely, Shreveport, Louisiana, experienced the highest household income decrease, at 1.43 percent.
• Frisco, Texas, experienced the highest job growth, at 6.12 percent. Conversely, Peoria, Illinois, experienced the highest jobs decrease, at 1.27 percent.
• Lake Charles, Louisiana, experienced the highest decrease in poverty rate, at 2.32 percent. Conversely, Wilmington, Delaware, experienced the highest increase in poverty rate, at 1.28 percent.
• Milpitas, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Mountain View, California, experienced the highest growth in real GDP per capita, at 5.68 percent. Conversely, Lafayette, Louisiana, experienced the highest decrease in real GDP per capita, at 4.87 percent.

In order to determine the most rapidly growing local economies, WalletHub compared 515 cities of varying population sizes based on two key dimensions, “Sociodemographics” and “Jobs & Economy.”

"We evaluated those dimensions using 15 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the fastest economic growth. For each metric, we analyzed data spanning from 2011 to 2017 with the exception of “Increase in Number of Startups” (from 2010 to 2014), “Increase in Number of Businesses” (from 2011 to 2016) and “Increase in Venture Capital Investment Amount (from 2010 to 2016)”, they stated when asked about their methodology. "Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample."