Now as new Covid-19 variants emerge and inflation sets in, the impact on particular areas of the country remains unsettled. But a new study suggests that smaller cities in the Northwest may be in a better position to weather the storm.

SmartAsset, an online resource for consumer-focused financial information, compiled and analyzed data on business, economy and population from 500 of the largest U.S. cities to identify the 50 fastest growing metropolises in the nation. (The study combed through data from the 543 most populous cities to find 500 with adequate data to be included.)Six cities in the Northwest finished in the top 10 — three in Washington, two in Idaho and one in Oregon. But the city that came out on top was Murfreesboro, Tenn., about 35 miles southeast of downtown Nashville, which finished in the top 20 percent of cities in most of the metrics the study considered. One was its August 2021 unemployment rate of just 3.4 percent. Another was its median household income, which grew by 38 percent over five years.