economic geography

In December 2010, Meredith Whitney, the financial analyst, appeared on 60 Minutes, where she predicted that the United States would see between 50 and 100 defaults of municipal bonds.  read more »

The latest BLS release for metro area unemployment has full year averages for 2011 available, so we can see which cities added the most jobs last year. On the whole, it was a much better year for metros than we’ve seen in the recent past. The national economy added jobs, and all but two large metros did as well. New York City added the most jobs of any region, but given that it is far and away the biggest city in America, it should do so. NYC ranked only the middle of the pack on a percentage growth basis. On that measure, Austin, Texas was number one.  read more »

In a previous post we looked at which states have been most competitive in terms of job creation since the recession.  read more »

Bert Sperling just released a new list of  “The Best Places to Hit Refresh” and perhaps surprisingly many are located in the much-ignored flyover states. According to the list, five cities throughout the Midwest and Great Plains perfect for those looking to start over.  read more »

The fully interactive map below indicates job growth and decline for all US counties from 2006 to 2011. These show up as hot or cold spots; red for growth, blue for decline. You can select a state to zoom in on and find a county that way, or simply click on a county to drill in. Once you’ve chosen a county, the table under the map will show you job numbers by industry category.  read more »

A few weeks ago EMSI looked at the states with the largest share of 1099 workers — that is, proprietors/independent contractors, farm workers, and others not covered by unemployment insurance. We found that since 2006 every state (as well as D.C.) has seen growth in noncovered workers.

Simply put, the number of workers outside traditional employment rolls is on the rise.  read more »

EMSI teamed up with Tableau Software to create this industry data display. You can visualize every broad-level (2-digit NAICS) industry by state over the last decade. Also, click on the dot for each state to see the trends for each sector. The bigger the dot, the more jobs that state has in the selected industry. It may take a few seconds to load.  read more »

Gross Domestic Product is the basic measure of economic output. The government released 2009 GDP data for US states recently, so it’s worth taking a look. Here’s a map of percent change in total real GDP from 2000 to 2009, with increases in blue, decreases in red:  read more »

Here’s a simple question for you…which metro areas did prospered the most during the past business cycle? (2000-2008)  Were the winners the highly-educated communities that make up the Creative Economy?  Or did someone else zoom ahead?  read more »

Texas metropolitan regions hold down four of the top five and nine of the top 16 places in Milken's new Best Performing Cities Index, released this morning. The rankings were authored by previous New Geography Contributor Ross DeVol, director of Regional Economics at Milken.  read more »