Butler County is among the state leaders in local economic investment and development, a study has found.

New York-based SmartAsset, a financial technology company, compared counties across the nation using four factors — business growth, gross domestic product growth, new building permits, and municipal bonds — to create a ranking system that focuses on local economies.

“To me this is sort of a new way of thinking about investment,” said AJ Smith, SmartAsset’s managing editor. “We wanted to think about ways that people can invest in their local areas.”

Butler County ranked second statewide in overall investment over the last two years, behind Cumberland County in south central Pennsylvania, according to the report, and 450th out of 3,141 counties nationwide.

The county also posted Top 10 rankings in business growth (2.5 percent) and new building permits per 1,000 homes (6.9).

Stan Kosciuszko, president of the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, said condo and apartment construction in the Cranberry area likely boosted the county’s ranking for building permits.

Four large hotel construction projects, and the county’s construction of a multi-million-dollar annex building likely boosted Butler’s ranking for municipal bonds and incoming investment during the past two years as well.

“Those things would really play into some major investment,” Kosciuszko said.

Another positive indicator of general economic health is the county’s low unemployment rate, he said.

According to figures released in June by the state Department of Labor and Industry, the county’s unemployment rate is 4.7 percent — 11th lowest in the state.

Kosciuszko said the Chamber has also seen a “large membership increase this year,” compared to normal.

The organization now has nearly 800 members, he said, and grew by about 16 percent. Normal yearly growth for the chamber is about 3 percent.

“If you look at the raw data, I guess we’re a lot better off than people think,” Kosciuszko said of local economic conditions.

Ken Raybuck, the executive director of the county’s Community Development Corporation, said he doesn’t see county’s growth rate slowing down in the near future.

Raybuck believes southwestern Butler County is and has been the engine driving area investment and development.

“It’s not uniform throughout the whole county, but you do see pockets and corridors basically of pretty strong growth,” Raybuck said. “I think a lot of it is driven, quite frankly, (by) Cranberry Township, which has been growing strong for a number of years.”

Transportation corridors like Interstate 79 and Route 228 can help development bleed into neighboring municipalities like Jackson Township, where Raybuck said work on a new FedEx distribution center continues.

Lancaster Township, which is home to the Route 19 corridor, is also seeing investment, Raybuck said. The township is expecting two residential developments to add hundreds of units of housing to the area.

“The whole corridor is starting to see growth,” Raybuck said. “It’s not just Cranberry now.”

Investment in natural gas production and related work is also playing a role, Raybuck said, but the organization doesn’t have data on the industry’s local impact.

“The only challenge I can see is areas like Butler City, which could use more growth,” Raybuck said.