McAllen MSA Ranked Top 20 Strongest Metros in 2011 by Brookings Institute

March 2011 — MetroMonitor: Tracking Economic Recession and Recovery in America’s 100 Largest Metropolitan Areas

McAllen Ranked top 20 strongest Metropolitan areas in recovery in the recession for average rank across a series of four indicators: employment change; unemployment rate change; gross metropolitan product change; and housing price index change.

As of the fourth quarter of 2010 (ending in December), the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas were seeing widespread and steady growth in economic output but only slow and inconsistent improvement in the labor market.  Job growth was sluggish and unemployment rates, although lower than at the end of 2009 in most large metropolitan areas, remained very high.  Housing market performance was mixed; house prices fell in nearly all large metropolitan areas, but the pace of foreclosures slowed.  As always, metropolitan economic performance varied greatly among the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

Nearly all those whose economies have suffered the least rely substantially on government (e.g., Washington and several state capitals), health care (e.g., Baltimore and Pittsburgh), education (e.g., Pittsburgh and Austin), or oil and gas (Denver). The map above shows how the 100 largest metropolitan areas rank on a combination of four economic indicators: percent job change from the peak quarter to the fourth quarter of 2010, change in the unemployment rate from December 2007 to December 2010, percent change in economic output (gross metropolitan product) from the peak quarter to the fourth quarter of 2010, and percent change in an index of house prices from the peak quarter to the fourth quarter of 2010.

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