Brookings study: Jacksonville among weakest economies in U.S. - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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Jacksonville ranked 96th out of the 100 cities just one of several Floridsa cities tofare poorly. The state had seven of the 20 pooresg performingmetro areas, and four of the worst The MetroMonitor study is the firsyt in an ongoing quarterly series and coverse the first quarter of 2009. Conductecd by the Metropolitan Policy Program at TheBrookingws Institution, the report ranks the economidc performance of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. Rankinges are reached through six criteria: employment, employment change by industry, unemployment rates, wages, gross metropolitan housing prices andforeclosure rates. Jacksonvill e had a 6.
8 percenrt drop in gross metropolitan product fromthe pre-recession peak to the first quarter of 2009. Housinv prices in the first quarter of this year weredown 8.9 percentg from a year earlier, and unemploymentg rose 4.6 percentage points in the past year. “Alpl metropolitan areas are feeling the effects ofthis recession, but the distresd is not shared equally,” said Alan Berube, researcjh director of the MPP at Brookingsd and co-author of the report. The studgy showed that San Antonio, Texas, has the strongesr performing economy of the 100 MSAs and Texas had five of the top six performintmetro areas. Detroit reported the weakesy economy.
Established in 1996, the MPP at Brookings providea research and policy ideas aimed at improvingg the prosperity of cities andmetropolitab areas.