Driving Growth in the Heartland
Overlook America’s heartland at your peril. These 20 states in the middle of the country, which produce almost $7.5 trillion of U.S. GDP according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, are driving even more economic growth.
Heartland Forward, a policy “think and do” tank based in Bentonville, Arkansas, has found that some of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas are in the heartland, a trend driven by workforce migration, investment in tech and advanced manufacturing, and an increase in local college graduates.
The organization’s February report, Heartland of Talent 2025, ranked the top 20 large cities and top 20 small and medium cities in the U.S. by the share of adults who are college graduates and employed in knowledge-based professions. The report revealed a continued exodus of top talent from traditional tech centers to heartland cities like Austin, Nashville, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The trend has accelerated since Heartland Forward last researched this issue in 2022.
Austin leads all large U.S. metros in the growth of college graduates, followed by Indianapolis; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Milwaukee; Nashville; and Dallas. Grand Rapids tops the list of large metros in growth of knowledge-based professionals, with Nashville in second place and San Antonio, Texas, coming in fourth.
Talent Migration
While cities like San Francisco, New York, and Boston remain talent leaders, heartland cities are quickly gaining ground. Austin; the Twin Cities in Minneapolis; Nashville; Columbus; and Kansas City and St. Louis all rank among the top 20 metros for knowledge-based professionals, while Austin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville and Chicago are among the top 20 large metros with the highest share of college graduates.
This shift is boosting innovation, economic growth, and workforce development.. “The competition for top talent is shifting, and the heartland is seizing the moment,” said Ross DeVol, chairman and CEO of Heartland Forward, which focuses on advancing the heartland’s economic performance through promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, human capital and workforce development, improvements in health and wellness, and regional competitiveness.
According to DeVol, the rise of remote work, continued investments in the heartland’s economy, and affordability and quality of life all contribute to the region’s ability to attract talented professionals.
On the flip side of workforce migration as a force for growth is the fact that more local graduates, which historically have sought work in U.S. coastal cities, are remaining in the heartland instead. “College towns in the heartland are doing a better job at retaining their graduates and providing economic opportunities,” says DeVol.
Investments for the Future
Investments in tech and advanced manufacturing are also driving growth, according to Heartland Forward’s Most Dynamic Metropolitans report, published in January. Big tech companies already based in Silicon Valley or other traditional tech centers are increasingly seeing the heartland’s appeal. For example, Apple has announced that its new server manufacturing facility in Houston, slated to open next year, will create thousands of jobs.
However, DeVol says that recruiting manufacturing and other operations from elsewhere is only one part of the heartland’s economic development strategy. Universities, economic development officials, and the financial community are now much more aware of the importance of incubating and scaling local companies. “We’re looking more to what I might call indigenous entrepreneurial growth and providing the services and support systems for founders that are trying to scale their companies,” says DeVol.
Although venture capital firms have generally been slow to realize the opportunities available in the middle of the country, VC investment in the heartland increased 247% to $20.2 billion between 2009 and 2019, according to a report by Crunchbase and Dundee Venture Capital. Austin, Nashville, and Kansas City have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of late. “We're seeing enough concentrations of venture capital coming to locations here in the center of the country that you can begin to think of entrepreneurial ecosystems,” says DeVol.
Heartland Forward’s Community Growth Program, an early-stage entrepreneurship curriculum for aspiring founders in partnership with Builders + Backers, is one supporting service for these ecosystems. More than 1,000 entrepreneurs have graduated from the program to date, many of them women and minorities. They have founded companies like Staley House in Arkansas, which manufactures FreeArm, a medical device that assists with the tube feeding of babies, and Abily, also in Arkansas, which has developed a picture-based tool that helps people with motor and visual disabilities browse websites.
Sustaining Momentum
Can the heartland continue to gain importance as a driver of U.S. GDP? That’s one of Heartland Forward’s primary objectives. The organization announced a new goal at the end of last year to generate $500 million of economic impact throughout the heartland by 2030.
But the outcome depends on how much progress is made on several key issues. One reason for the heartland’s recent growth has been the expansion of affordable high-speed internet access, enabling remote work and entrepreneurship in previously underserved regions. Education and workforce programs, like rootEd Arkansas, now ensure that students in rural areas can compete in the digital economy. Without continued investment to expand affordable, broadband infrastructure across the heartland, many emerging metro areas risk falling behind.
Improving economic development also means improving health policy and outcomes. “Here in Arkansas, we are 49th or 50th on outcomes in maternal health,” says DeVol, who adds that this tragedy results in a loss of human capital, is detrimental to workforce development, and local entrepreneurship. The organization’s Heartland Health Caucus, which brings together legislative leaders responsible for health in eight states, has been working on a number of initiatives, including boosting the size of the healthcare workforce and improving access to healthcare across the heartland with the use of telehealth services.
Heartland cities already benefit from a lower cost of living and less business regulation than many of their coastal counterparts, but Heartland Forward is advocating for more investment in workforce training at both the local and federal level, and a commitment to more business-friendly policies for heartland cities to increase their economic power.
DeVol says that policymakers, business leaders, and economic developers all need to act to sustain this momentum. “The heartland has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to cement its place as a powerhouse for talent, innovation, and economic growth,” he says. “The investments we make today will define the economic landscape for decades to come.”