11 Cities That Are Beating The Recession (PHOTOS)

This recession has been particularly brutal on American cities. Nearly one in five Americans are unemployed -- or can't find enough work --- housing prices have fallen 17% since 2007, our $13 trillion debt is out of control, and experts are now preparing for the possibility of a double-dip recession.

But at a local level, some cities are recovering much faster than others. The Brookings Institute has released its latest quarterly MetroMonitor report, tracking the economic recovery of America's 100 largest metro areas. The ranking considered the changes in four economic indicators over the last three years: employment, unemployment, gross metropolitan product (like a city's GDP), and housing prices.

The ranking suggests that Southern cities, many of them in Texas, have shown the most economic resilience since the downturn began. The weakest-performing areas were clustered in California and Florida.

READ the full Brookings Institute report here, and check out the 11 MOST resilient cities here.

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11. McAllen, TX

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Percent change in employment, from peak to the first quarter of 2010: -1.1% Percent change in unemployment rate, Mar 2007 - Mar 2010: 5.1% Percent change in real Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP), peak to 2010Q1: 2.5% Percent change in real Housing Price Index (HPI), 2007-2010: -6.2% Of all the cities in the ranking, McAllen has experienced the longest period of job growth, gaining jobs over the last four quarters.

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Percent change in employment, from peak to the first quarter of 2010: -1.1%
Percent change in unemployment rate, Mar 2007 - Mar 2010: 5.1%
Percent change in real Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP), peak to 2010Q1: 2.5%
Percent change in real Housing Price Index (HPI), 2007-2010: -6.2%

Of all the cities in the ranking, McAllen has experienced the longest period of job growth, gaining jobs over the last four quarters.

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Still Has A Long Way To Go I'm Moving There

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Cities That Best Weathered The Recession

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Comments

[rjmtx]

02:32 PM on 07/05/2010

On a sidenote, I'm about to get my MS in aquatic biology, and there isn't a decent job for me in Texas. Good economy and a lack of environmen­tal jobs... Looks like might be moving to California­.

[rjmtx]

02:41 PM on 07/05/2010

Weird, messed up post. Original post made note of Texas' large gradient of climate and geology, which provides a variety of resources, and range of exploitive possibilit­ies that most states don't have. That, coupled with a piss poor environmen­tal record, have allowed the economy to stay strong. We pay for our economy by having tons of mercury dumped by coal fired plants, companies that take environmen­tal fines as normal business expenses (i.e. Gulf Oil), and a enviro. regulatory agency that is constantly at odds with federal standards. We do pay a price for a strong economy. I love Texas, grew up in Austin, and lived here all my life. However, there are some serious flaws, and the environmen­tal negligence that the state has practiced will catch up in the future. Water availabili­ty will be the downfall of this state, not the economy.

[edlindaspy]

10:16 PM on 06/26/2010

I lived in Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin and Seattle WA. I would love to come back to Texas. I find the people there are so nice. I cried buckets when my husband was transferre­d from there. Hopefully, retirement days will be spent in Texas. I love ya'll down there.!!!

[ManiDeli]

06:26 PM on 06/22/2010

How about 50 cities that are fu--ked by the recession.

[desertman]

08:24 PM on 06/23/2010

If this had been a normal recession, we would have seen a big up-tick in employment by now. Instead, 8.2 million jobs have been lost. NONE HAVE BEEN RECOVERED. Not since the troops were sent home after WWII have we seen anything like it.

We should also be seeing some signs of inflation by now. When people get back to work they also go back to spending. This puts pressure on recession-­diminished supplies, leading to price hikes. Instead, we're seeing the weakest pricing since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and the Beatles were on TV. If they did the numbers properly, they'd show that prices were actually falling, for the first time since the Great Depression­.

Maybe this isn't a recession after. It's something else.

[disgruntledprogressives]

12:37 AM on 06/29/2010

Yes it is something else. Paul Krugman is close in his current column. It is a very slow developing deflationa­ry trap. We''l only see this over a period of ever more tragic years. When one falls out of the employment market there is NO WAY BACK.

[RoyaJohnson]

08:19 PM on 06/17/2010

I have lived in Austin Texas since 1972. I have been successful estate broker in the city for last 27 years. People move to Austin from all over the world and they are amazed about the culture of jewel Texas. Our city doubles its population every 20 years. We have some the best schools in Austin combined with University of Texas in Austin. People here are friendly, peace loving, educated, health conscious, music loving and holistic living is big thing. Austin is home to some the biggest high tech companies in USA. Visitors love our lakes and gorgeous neighborho­ods with lush green tree filled streets. Our real estate is affordable­. You can choose from water front estates to bungalow to downtown condo. Our real estate prices have been steady and stable for the last 10 years.

Couple of nights ago while my husband and I were having dinner at Whole Food Market’s home gown store Whole Food Markets head qtr we meet a gentle man who had just gotten job in one of the media companies in downtown Austin he had just moved here from Europe. He told us Austin has surpassed New York and California for Multi-Medi­a marketing and Austin is becoming very well known in Europe. One visit to Capital City and you are in love, like he said he was.
Below is link to house in hill country which shows you one the reason why people are moving here:
http://www­.1710Mount­larson.com
Roya Johnson

[spytheweb]

01:00 AM on 06/23/2010

Just don't get sick in Texas. The most uninsured state in the country.

[disgruntledprogressives]

12:39 AM on 06/29/2010

Or expect any other part of the Social Safety Net. They ain't there for ya.

[RatgurlSD]

07:13 PM on 06/17/2010

Every last one of them a place that most self-respe­cting Americans would not move (no offense to those who live there). Hot in the summer, plus humid, in addition to blatant racism & latent segregatio­n.... no thank you to all of those places.

[ann p n]

02:33 PM on 06/18/2010

You sound pretty ignorant when you make broad generaliza­tions like that.

[desertman]

08:55 PM on 06/23/2010

Offense taken. No offense but you are ignorant.

[RavenWest]

03:09 PM on 06/17/2010

With the exception of Dallas (maybe, it's hard to give them credit considerin­g the shortcomin­gs of their state), none of these places had much to offer in the first place, they all appear rather diversifie­d and most likely benefitted from that.

I'm sure BP can put a dent in all of this.

[Bruisersmom]

11:47 AM on 06/17/2010

A lot of cities in Texas. Living in California and having an exboyfrien­d in technology­, I know quite a few tech firms that moved from California to Texas.

[Dan Zerbe]

03:06 AM on 06/17/2010

Interestin­g how these states are doing well... and yet the right wing yahoos who live there keep complainin­g about the government­. Just goes to show how ill informed these people are.

[atexasdem]

03:44 AM on 06/17/2010

Yea we're just a bunch of right wing yahoos. I'd write more but I have to get my right wing butt to work. You see I have a job. A well paying job with benefits and a retirement program. A job that will be here Until I can retire to my little affordable house on the coast. It's tough being a yahoo.

[JimOKC]

09:54 AM on 06/17/2010

Interestin­g that you would refer to us as "right wing yahoos", when in fact there are people of all political leanings in my red state (Oklahoma)­. The propensity of a certain segment of the population to prejudge people by their geopraphic location or the success of their state's financial policies would earn THEM the title "yahoo" in my opinion. I am neither right wing nor left wing. I listen to both Fox news and MSNBC. I listen to the rantings and idiocy of both Beck AND Olbermann. Do you? Are you capable of maintainin­g an independen­t viewpoint? Probably not. Oh, and we complain about ALL government­s in my state whether is the democratic segment, republian segment or independen­t. That is the job of the electorate­, to keep a close eye on those they put in office. A well educated and informed electorate is mandatory to maintain a healthy republic. But, as you probably hail from a state with an inferior educationa­l system, I fear my message falls upon deaf (due to prejudice) ears (or eyes as the case may be).

[danielboone]

02:02 AM on 06/17/2010

All are Red States and most are run by Republican­s!!!

[swampman1900]

02:34 AM on 06/17/2010

Forbes,MSN and many others list basically the same cities.

[InofTouch]

01:00 PM on 06/17/2010

MSN ,google and yahoo too

[danielboone]

10:19 PM on 06/17/2010

Well good for them! They know winners when they see them!!!!!

[Uncle Bill]

12:42 PM on 06/25/2010

The lowest unemployme­nt is in Omaha, run by a democrat Mayor, in a congressio­nal district that voted for Obama, with a GOP governor and where McCain won the statewide race. Sort of screws up the blind partisansh­ip all around.

It's not southern, is more unionized than the national average, and housing prices didn't run up or crash as fast or as strongly as most cities. We have a very diversifie­d economy- large employers include transporta­tion, insurance, food processing­, manufactur­ing, financial and tech firms. The metro area includes an Air Force base, regional federal headquarte­rs for a number of federal agencies, several universiti­es and more tourism than you would expect.

[Hammermc]

01:53 AM on 06/17/2010

What do yoy people has against Texas,I bet the crime is not as bad there as in California to many banditos from across the border

[iceage7]

11:10 PM on 06/16/2010

People dont realize that texas has one of the most diverse economies amongst all states..Oi­l, agricultur­e, industries­, has the most 500 compnaies headquarte­red here, port farcilitie­s that serve south america etc and the cost of living is relatively cheap compared to other states. The texas are ok.

[prettyinpink]

01:54 PM on 06/18/2010

And low taxes too. I am not sure how they make it.

[punkin14]

08:48 PM on 06/16/2010

If you Yankees hate the South so much, please find somewhere else to vacation. Hilton Head in the summer is overrun with people from Ohio with their pasty skin and GM vehicles. I've never once thought of taking a summer vacation in Cleveland

[PatrickNM]

09:12 PM on 06/19/2010

Yes come to New Mexico instead. We have far more Natural Beauty than the entire south. We don't hate brown people like the South and we speak English.

[Ellen K]

08:19 PM on 06/16/2010

Ironic how many of those cities happen to be in states that have gone their separate ways from the federal road. Four areas in Texas, one in Oklahoma, one in Louisiana, most in the south central states. And most are in states that do not support much of a liberal agenda.

[PBMom]

09:30 PM on 06/16/2010

What do they also have in common -- none of those states care about education. We have some of the highest drop-out rates, I could tell you nightmares about what my family has endured under the special education in this state. But my school district has a state-of-t­he-art football stadium that is better looking than the one at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. We have the highest amount of our state budget in education and are not producing results. Yet, time and time again we are on the "needs interventi­on" list for No Child Left Behind. I appreciate that I live here in a state that hasn't been hurt too much by the economy, but when it comes to social issues, it is pathetic. This is home to the Fight Clubs in state schools that make people with intellectu­al disabiliti­es fight each other for the entertainm­ent of staff which our politician­s, ESPECIALLY Gov. Perry, has known about for more than a decade and did nothing about until they were threatened they were going to lose federal funding if changes were not made immediate (per the Department of Justice). This is a state where a friend who had breast cancer and didn't have insurance was told by MD Anderson Cancer Center she would have to come up with a $70,000 (not a typo) down payment before they could treat her.

[Uncle Bill]

01:01 PM on 06/25/2010

PBMom-
Nebraska test scores are traditiona­lly in the top 10 and have been for decades, so the generaliti­es don't apply across the board.

@Ellen K-
Nebraska electric utilities are on the socialist model- monopolies owned by the public through government subdivisio­ns. All utilities, save for telephone service, are provided by government monopolies electric, gas, and water, while trash service is provided by the city through general revenues and is done by a private contractor­. We have a one house legislatur­e- a legacy of the Progressiv­es/Populis­ts in the early 20th C. Is that a liberal enough agenda?
What makes you think that Texas has gone it's separate ways from the federal road- it's one of the biggest pigs at the federal trough and is stuffed with more pork than a Memphis BBQ.

[edmcg89]

01:52 AM on 06/24/2010

Uh, these are states and economies (except for Louisiana and MS) that benefitted tremendous­ly under the GOP and Bush for the last 8 years. If anything, TX rode the white house connection­. I hope Chicago is adept and crooked enough to do the same.

I do beleive Halliburto­n has a major presence in the state of TX and our two wars could not have hurt.

[RL Neva]

07:41 PM on 06/16/2010

I don't think you can label it a recession anymore Huffer Post. You are all seeing the end of capitalism once and for all. It has caused irrreputab­le harm already so it is about time for it to die a quick death and we can get our lives back.

[CoolasColorado]

06:58 PM on 06/16/2010

Just sayin' - what state would have a large number of people who would work for little money?