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

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A report from Washington, D.C.-based liberal public-polic think tank dubbed the MetroMonitor bills itself asa “beneath the recession-era look at metros with more than 500,000 residentzs as of 2007. The report placed the Columbus metropolitah statistical area 40th among thoses ranked forits strength, based on unemployment, wage, output, home prices and foreclosure No other Ohio city made the top 50. Cincinnati, Akron and Dayton found slots from 61st to Toledo was rankedthe 10th-weakesf major metropolitan area nationwide. Leading the pack in the reporrt wasSan Antonio, one of four Texas cities amontg the nation’s top five. Detroit was ranked followed byCape Coral, Fla.
, and Stockton, two areas devastated by the foreclosure crisis. Brookingzs found that the metropolitan perspective on performance amid therecession “suggests that recovery may be quitse uneven as well, posing particula r challenges for policymakers seeking to ensure a trulh national rising economic tide.” Columbus’ strength s and weaknesses in the reporf varied. The city ranked 25th for its 1.7 percen decline in employment sincee its peak earlierthis decade. Columbus found itself at 32nd for itsmodest 0.4 percent gain in inflation-adjusteds housing prices for the first thred months of 2008 compared with the same period this year.
But the city was ranke near the bottom of the at 80th, for the 4.8 percent declinwe in its gross metropolitan produc – a measure of the goods and services produced in the area in the first quarter of 2009 comparede with its pre-recession peak. Comparing the last thred months of 2008 with the first quarted thisyear alone, the GMP droppedf 1.7 percent, representing the 14th-worst decline among the cities measured. To download the full click .