Richard Florida elaborates on the above map, which predicts the “time frame for return to peak employment in metro areas across the U.S.”:
My own view is that we are in the midst of a long-run Great Reset, one that is slow moving and uneven across cities and regions. A report [PDF] released at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors last week – though it was spun optimistically, with predictions of job growth in 357 of the country’s 363 metropolitan areas – lends support to this view. Just a third of all metros (121) are projected to have job creation rates of 2 percent or more. And while 40 percent are predicted to have unemployment rates below 6 percent during 2014, a worryingly high proportion – 35 percent – will see their rates hover above 7 percent. …
Many of the places that have already recovered, in gray and blue, are located in one of the two pillars of the new economy – the energy belt of Texas and the Great Plains, and knowledge hubs like Boston, New York, the Baltimore-Washington region, and the Bay Area. The places that likely won’t return to full employment until 2016-7 (yellow) or 2018 and beyond (red) include former manufacturing hubs of the Rustbelt; poorer, de-industrialized East Coast metros like Camden, New Jersey; and old Southern manufacturing cities like Birmingham, Alabama.
The Dish 