Southwestern U.S. Cities Still Await Recovery

According to new research from WalletHub, nowhere has the housing fallout been more acute than in the American Southwest.

The study ranked 150 largest U.S. cities based on how much economic progress they have made since the recession. Of the 15 cities that have recovered the least, nine are in the Southwest: five in Arizona (Tucson, Glendale, Tempe, Mesa, and Phoenix), and four in Nevada (North Las Vegas, Henderson, Reno, and Las Vegas).

Factors that researchers looked at were change in the poverty and violent-crime rates, home-price appreciation, wage growth, and the change in the number of part-time jobs compared with full-time jobs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“By contrast, some large U.S. cities are doing even better than they were before the recession, and many of them have the energy sector to thank,” the article says.

Half of the best-faring cities were energy-rich ones in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska.

Read more