Economic Confidence Erodes in Battered Cities

Gallup has come out with a poll that shows that economic confidence in America’s largest cities is very poor. This is especially so among cities that have been nearly destroyed by the recession and its effects on jobs and real estate. At the bottom of the list are Jacksonville and Tampa in Florida, Riverside and Sacramento in California, and Buffalo, N.Y.

Buffalo’s economy was ruined by the disappearance of the old manufacturing world. Detroit or Flint or Toledo could be on the list. Each has lost factories that employed tens of thousands of people and made those people middle class. The steel, rubber and car industries will never return to these cities. Each of these industries already has diminished by the movement of jobs overseas.

Riverside and Sacramento are part of the interior region of central California. The presence of state jobs there helped build economic success. When California’s economy collapsed, most of those jobs went away. Inflated real estate values in the region collapsed. Unemployment in these cities is among the highest in the nation. Nothing in the foreseeable future will change that. The real estate markets also will remain difficult. People without jobs often cannot afford homes or the purchase of new ones.

Florida’s largest cities also will take decades to recover from the recession. The migration southward of people who wanted to live in Florida’s inviting climate was hurt by the recession. Housing booms were prevalent from the northern Atlantic Coast down to Miami as people bought second homes. The boom extended inward to Orlando and across the state to the Gulf Coast, where nearly ruined Tampa and Naples sit.

Gallup commented on the problems of these cities:

Many of the large metro areas that rank near the bottom of the economic confidence listings also rank near the bottom in Gallup’s Job Creation Index. This includes Buffalo, Riverside, Sacramento, Providence, and Las Vegas, which rank in the bottom seven on both measures.

Who would have believed otherwise?

Douglas A. McIntyre