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For the past 10 years, Omaha, Neb., has experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity. This mid-size city has lifted itself from the economic downturn of the late 1980s by taking its destiny into its own hands and turning Omaha into a model for economic and community development.
Since 1990, the five-county metropolitan area (Washington, Douglas, Sarpy, and Cass, Neb.; and Pottawattamie, Iowa) has seen more than 73,400 jobs created, an increase of 22.2 percent. Job growth has been accompanied by population growth. The Omaha MSA population reached nearly 694,000 in 1998, up from 639,600 in 1990. More than one million people reside within a 50-mile radius of the city. Household effective buying income is 20 percent above the national median.
Omaha has courted broad-based economic growth to protect its economy from the boom-or-bust cycles characteristic of areas dependent on a single industry. Located in the center of the United States along interstates 80 and 29 and along the Missouri River, Omaha's tradition as a regional trade and transportation center remains. Agriculture and manufacturing also continue to be key parts of the economic picture.
But the city also has emerged as a regional center for banking, insurance, and medical care, and as a hub for information technology companies. There are 32 banks and six S&Ls, two dozen insurance company headquarters, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is one of the nation's leading sites for cancer research and treatment - as well as for solid organ transplantation.
Approximately 50,000 Omahans work in the city's 1,000 small and large information, data-processing, and telecommunications companies, which are involved in a host of services including investing, credit cards, longdistance telephone, computer outsourcing, and telemarketing. It is estimated that more than 20 million people...