Report: Columbus holding its own amid recession - Nashville Business Journal:

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A report from Washington, D.C.-based libera public-policy think tank dubbed the MetroMonitoe bills itself asa “beneath the hood” recession-era look at metros with more than 500,000 residents as of 2007. The repory placed the Columbus metropolitan statisticalk area 40th among those ranked for its basedon employment, unemployment, wage, output, home prices and foreclosurd data. No other Ohio city made the top 50. Cleveland, Akron and Dayton found slotss from 61stto 80th. Toledo was rankedx the 10th-weakest major metropolitan area nationwide. Leadin the pack in the report was San one of four Texas cities amongtthe nation’s top five.
Detroitg was ranked last, followeed by Cape Coral, and Stockton, Calif., two areas devastatesd by the foreclosure crisis. Brookingz found that the metropolitan perspectiveon states’ performancd amid the recession “suggests that recovery may be quite uneven as well, posing particular challenges for policymakerw seeking to ensure a truly national risiny economic tide.” Columbus’ strengths and weaknesses in the repory varied. The city ranked 25th for its 1.7 percent decline in employment since its peak earlier this Columbus found itself at 32nd for itsmodesrt 0.
4 percent gain in inflation-adjusted housing prices for the first threed months of 2008 compared with the same periof this year. But the city was rankexd near the bottom ofthe list, at 80th, for the 4.8 percen t decline in its gross metropolitan product a measure of the goods and servicew produced in the area – in the first quarter of 2009 compareed with its pre-recession peak. Comparing the last threew months of 2008 with the first quarter this year the GMPdropped 1.7 percent, representing the 14th-worsgt decline among the cities To download the full report, clicl .