Orange County Benchmarking and Target Industry Analysis: Spotlight

Figure 1: Orange County Peers
The IBRC used three steps to develop this peer set:
1. The Census Bureau’s set of 3,144 counties was limited to the 518 counties whose population
ranged from 15,000 to 25,000 residents. Analysts chose this population threshold to stay about
5,000 above and below Orange County’s 2000 population (19,306 residents).
2. The remaining counties were then compared to Orange County by their 2000 values for the
following indicators:
� Per capita personal income (PCPI)
� Percent of total employment in manufacturing
� Percent of total employment in trade and transportation
� Percent of total employment in professional services
� Percent of total employment in financial activities.
Each county’s value in the given indicators were divided by Orange Countyʹs value for that same
indicator in order to determine which county’s values were closest to Orange County’s. To
standardize these values, the absolute value of each county’s mark minus one (one represents
Orange County) was calculated. Finally, a composite score was created by summing the countyʹs
absolute values for each indicator. The lower the composite score, the more similar the county is
to Orange County with regard to these indicators. To narrow down the list, IBRC focused on the
100 lowest scores and relied on judgment to arrive at the final peer set of 10 counties. The most
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