The constant stream of lists from Forbes provides a great distraction and source of amusement. Their latest list is no exception. Behold the ten “Best Cities To Ride Out The Recession”:
- Austin, TX
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Honolulu, HI
- Portland, OR
- Tulsa, OK
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Seattle, WA
- Baltimore, MD
- Boston, MA
- Lancaster, PA
From the article:
The economy faces a tough recession, but it won’t hit equally everywhere. While some places will get pummeled, others will be far less scathed.
…
There are cities better poised to weather the crisis. Unemployment is on the rise almost everywhere, but in northwest cities like Portland and Seattle, northeast cities like Boston and Baltimore or energy and agriculture cities like Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Austin, it remains low.
Here’s a link to the summary of their “methodology,” in which they explain that the list is derived from looking at real estate data from Zillow, NAR, and Case-Shiller, job data, income estimates, and GDP for each city.
The hilarious thing to me is that basketball-stealing Oklahoma City was #2, while Seattle placed five spots lower at #7, also getting beat by Tulsa and Portland. Ouch.
Coincidentally, BusinessWeek generated a “Best Cities for Riding Out a Recession” list of its own (related article), which places Seattle lower, but still in the top 20:
- Arlington, VA
- District of Columbia
- Durham, NC
- Madison, WI
- Boston, MA
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Baltimore, MD
- Baton Rouge, LA
- New Orleans, LA
- Philadelphia, PA
- Lubbock, TX
- Anchorage, AK
- Lexington-Fayette, KY
- Buffalo, NY
- Lincoln, NE
- Irvine, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Chesapeake, VA
- Albuquerque, NM
- Corpus Christi, TX
Hey, we’re ten spaces lower than on the Forbes list, but at least we didn’t get beat by Oklahoma City.
(Joshua Zumbrun, Forbes, 10.15.2008)
(Prashant Gopal, BusinessWeek, 10.14.2008)