Thu, June 18, 2009
Brookings Institution Report Ranks Boston Economy 30th Nationally
Yesterday the Brookings Institution released a report evaluating the effect of the Great Recession on employment and other economic indicators in the nation’s 100 largest cities. Even with a below-average showing for housing prices, Boston's economy doesn't look so bad in comparison to many other cities.
The Institution announced the results in its first MetroMonitor, a report it intends to release quarterly with an assessment of housing data, economic output, employment, and wages for major cities. Boston’s strengths in education and health care – the two sectors of the economy that are perhaps least impacted by the recession – contributed to fairly strong overall results. Despite a 2.8% decrease in Boston-area housing prices in Q1 2009 versus last year, the metro area’s performance was stronger than most of the other cities. At the other extreme, the Providence-New Bedford-Fall River metro area was included among the 20 weakest cities in the nation overall.
The weakest metro areas tended to be in California and Florida, hit hard by housing price declines, but cities dependent on manufacturing also reflected considerable weakness.
The report highlights the tremendous regional variability in the effects of the current recession. The unevenness of the damage suggests that recovery is likely to be quite variable across the nation as a whole.