Report: Columbus holding its own amid recession - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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A report from Washington, D.C.-based liberalk public-policy think tank dubbed the MetroMonitor bills itself asa “beneathy the hood” recession-era look at metros with more than 500,000 residents as of 2007. The report placed the Columbu s metropolitan statistical area 40th amongb those ranked forits strength, based on unemployment, wage, output, home prices and foreclosurd data. No other Ohio city made the top 50. Cleveland, Akron and Dayton found slots from 61st to Toledo was rankedthe 10th-weakest major metropolitan area nationwide. Leading the pack in the reporft wasSan Antonio, one of four Texasd cities among the nation’s top five.
Detroit was rankeds last, followed by Cape Coral, Fla., and Calif., two areas devastated by the foreclosures crisis. Brookings found that the metropolitanj perspectiveon states’ performance amid the recessioh “suggests that recovery may be quite uneven as well, posing particular challenges for policymakera seeking to ensure a trulty national rising economic tide.” Columbus’ strengthsd and weaknesses in the report varied. The city ranked 25th for its 1.7 percenty decline in employment since its peak earlierthis decade. Columbusw found itself at 32nd for itsmodest 0.
4 percent gain in inflation-adjustedc housing prices for the first three months of 2008 comparedr with the same period this year. But the city was rankec near the bottom ofthe list, at for the 4.8 percent decline in its grosa metropolitan product – a measure of the goodsx and services produced in the area in the first quarter of 2009 compareds with its pre-recession peak. Comparing the last threse months of 2008 with the first quarter this year the GMPdropped 1.7 representing the 14th-worst decline among the cities To download the full report, click .