Recession and Recovery in the Intermountain West’s Metropolitan Areas

Mark Muro, Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program and Jonathan Rothwell, Senior Research Analyst of The Brookings Institution published a report titles the Mountain Monitor in Dec 2009 outlining the outlook for the Mountain West states.

According to this report:

Drawing on data covering the third quarter of 2009 (ending in September), the new Monitor documents that no multistate region has been hit harder by the last year’s economic crisis than the six-state Intermountain zone.

Across the region, the deflation of a massive housing “bubble,” widespread job losses, and the onset of a significant public-sector fiscal crisis have wreaked havoc on many communities. In many Intermountain region locations, the sheer abruptness of the shift from hyper-growth early in the decade to a severe contraction in the last year has spawned a sense of almost existential whiplash.

As the findings below highlight, even within the region the effects of the recession and recovery have not been uniformly felt. Phoenix, Boise, and Las Vegas, for example, remained three of the most troubled metropolitan areas in the entire nation in the third quarter, with all residing in the weakest quintile of metros on a combined measure of overall economic performance.

Read full report here.