Cities Getting Hit Hardest Since The Recession: Report

Official recovery or not, it turns out that cities around the world still have a long way to go to get back to where they were before the downturn.

More than half of the world's 200 largest cities have yet to return to their pre-recession levels in either income or employment, according to a new report from the Brookings Institute. Compared to the pre-recession years of 1993 to 2007, cities all around the world are struggling, especially in North America and Western Europe.

In cities like Dublin and New Orleans, income growth rates decline last year. Chinese cities, which have generally fared much better through the recession, are also seeing a drop off. Industry hubs like Beijing and Guangzhou have seen growth rates drop by over half compared to pre-recession levels.

"China took proactive steps last year to cool off its real estate market, which people were concerned was facing the same kind of bubble condition as in the U.S. and Europe prior to the recession," Alan Berube, an author of the report told The Huffington Post. "In the process of doing that it managed to cool off the economy altogether."

The Brookings findings for U.S. cities mirror other reports. Brookings, which looked only at the 57 largest cities in the U.S., found that none "had fully recovered its recession induced losses by 2011," while and IHS Global Insight report found that only 26 of the nation's 363 cities had returned to pre-recession levels of employment.

While the Brookings report notes significant employment growth declines in cities like Las Vegas, Berube said some cities have faired better than others, a pattern that will likely continue going forward.

"In the United States it will be a mixed bag," he said. "Some places will be back to where they were prior to the recession, growing their income and employment levels -- not at a rapid rate -- but one that should bring unemployment down. Others are still trying to escape the vortex leftover from the recession."

Here are the ten cities whose income growth has dropped most significantly since before the recession, according to the Brookings Institute:

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Comments

[Anita Benson]

02:32 PM on 01/20/2012

Seems like everyone is tightening their belts.

[jjslonaker]

09:36 AM on 01/20/2012

As a resident of New Orleans, we have one of the best economies in the US compared to most major US cities... this article is not keeping in mind that we still have 100,000 people to go till we reach pre katrina population.. Yes we had a hurricane which slightly effected our population. New Orleans according to forbes, has the most college graduates moving to it out of any US city, and it's small business startup is 40% higher than the average in America... So this article needs to check the facts, and consider that we had a hurricane in 2005 and are missing a major part of the population that was found in the statistic.

[Anita Benson]

02:32 PM on 01/20/2012

Go New Orleans! So great that it can be a symbol of recovery to the rest of the States.

[mcneas1005]

08:28 PM on 01/20/2012

Maybe Katrina was God's way of cleaning up a corrupt city.

[Bienville]

07:49 PM on 01/30/2012

I wish "God" would improve his aim. A lot of the corrupt parts didn't change a bit, but lots of innocent bystanders were completely wiped out.

[Bari Landry Vaz]

09:56 AM on 01/31/2012

Only if your "God" decided that wiping out churches, schools, and families is the best way to clean up corruption.

[4eva]

01:11 AM on 01/20/2012

Why are we trying to 'recover' a system that utterly failed and is unsustainable?

[usofcorporations]

06:48 PM on 01/19/2012

China looks a hell of a lot better than Detroit.

[360Dunk]

04:39 PM on 01/19/2012

On the plus side, the hookers I pay for in San Francisco are only charging me $5 plus tax, which is down from the ordinary $20 hooker. So recession isn't all that bad.

[MSROADKILL612]

09:53 AM on 01/20/2012

stagdeflation?

[sheilab173]

02:15 PM on 01/19/2012

WHAT !! CHINA.. thats ware 99.9% of the junk comes from.>BUT Americans getting smart. NOT BUYING FROM CHINA. we need a AMerican store that only sells USA products. then we will put all of them out of work. sell all local food ECT!!!! That would be GREAT!!!

[crowleyklim]

03:29 PM on 01/19/2012

horray for you, you are sososososos right, can we do it, will we do it, hope so, count on me, i only want AMERICAN MADE, ALL THE WAY. GOOD OLD USA

[StinkyPete0279]

05:35 PM on 01/19/2012

Only 2.7 of what Americans buy comes from China. Try again. http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html

[John Wilhoit]

01:38 PM on 01/19/2012

I presume all of these cities to have an even higher unemployment rate than the current abnormal norm present day. This fact trickles down in all areas including the costs of housing. In the U.S. housing costs in New Orleans, while lower than many other regions, is still suffering historically high vacancy (single-family and multifamily). I suspect this will be sustained to 2015... at least. J. Wilhoit http://multifamilyinsight.net

[excaderesdesire]

01:29 PM on 01/19/2012

What I would like to know is what cities they are talking about besides Las Vegas since Nevada was one of the first states that crashed first...what an infomative BS article!

[NancyY]

01:22 PM on 01/19/2012

And yet, there are countries where they pop out an average of seven kids apiece...

[Hammer0311]

12:46 PM on 01/19/2012

Illegals in the USA are the biggest problem we are not fighting

[whinenot]

01:25 PM on 01/19/2012

Wow, you have the meme down, but just because you can say it, doesn't mean it is true. The biggest problem we have in the US is the shrinking middle class and ever increasing wage/income disparity between the wealthy and everyone else.

'Illegals' do many jobs Americans refuse to, or do not have the preferred skills to do. For example, in rural areas (I grew up in a primarily agricultural area) the growers stopped using 'anglos' because: (1) they did more damage to the trees/crops than the legal and illegal migrant workers did; (2) they worked slower than the legal and illegal migrants worked, (3) they worked cheapter as well. This is true in other industries including, landscaping, housekeeping, building, etc. You have no clue as to what the costs (and they would be in the billions) would be to add detention centers, law enforcement officials and judges to handle deporting 11 million people. You have no clue as to how inflationary it would be, or how many businesses would go belly up, if al the 'illegals' were sent packing. Your sentiments are simplistic, unrealistic and just plain incorrect. Illegal immigrants do create problems, but they are not anywhere close to being our 'biggest problem'. Not even close.

[Hammer0311]

04:59 PM on 01/19/2012

1 My folks were pickers, thanks letting know how you rationalize kicking us to curb. As to cost
2 thats plain bigoted
3 yes putting citizen families out of work 60 years ago
4 Yes I realize the cost of an Ike like sweep thru our nation to start would be expensive, what price do you put on citizenship, the money not spent on supportting them would be recouped less than 4 yrs. A much better plan than surrunderingto the invaders

[HAlexandria]

04:42 PM on 01/20/2012

Er if you add substantial amounts of workers to an economy, how can you possibly expect wages to increase or even stand pat.

It's not just illegals, it's all the H1B types that get admitted into the country to keep labour prices artificially low, ensuring higher profits for management....shareholders may or may not see any of the gains.

As for agriculture, migrant workers are what keep smaller farmers in business, most, if not all, harvesting can be done by machine, but many of those machines are very expensive, and must be maintained by highly skilled workers - the type of goods/services only large corporate farms can afford.

so sure you would put a lot of small farmers out of business, but they only constitute 2% of the population, everyone else would get a boost...Oh there is another caveat - small farmers are what keep many rural political districts alive..if they go under, so do the politicians who represent them.

[crowleyklim]

03:32 PM on 01/19/2012

say it again , again and again, so what are we doing about it, well lets our new president will and can do something about it.