All Over Albany

The Capital Region's economy is performing relatively well

The Albany metro area was among the 21 economically strongest performing large metro areas through the first quarter of 2010, according to the Brookings Institution.

The report bases the rankings on a handful of categories: employment, unemployment, output, home prices, and foreclosure rates.

The Albany metro area scored well for foreclosed properties and both employment and unemployment -- and relatively well for housing prices (the ranks, with the associated data, are after the jump).

Of course, all these rankings are relative to other metro areas. The overall picture is not great. The Brookings report describes the current national situation as "a jobless and increasingly fragile recovery."

Data via Brookings Institution. The lower the ranking, the better. Real estate owned properties are foreclosed properties that don't sell at auction and then end up being owned by the lender.

From the blurb about the "MetroMonitor" report:

The MetroMonitor, an interactive barometer of the health of America's metropolitan economies, looks "beneath the hood" of national economic statistics to portray the diverse metropolitan landscape of recession and recovery across the country. It aims to enhance understanding of the local underpinnings of national economic trends, and to promote public and private sector responses to the downturn that take into account metropolitan areas' distinct strengths and weaknesses.

(Thanks, Jeff and @SamanthaTara)

photo: Victoria Garcia via Flickr