metro

A new report indicates that half of Louisiana's metropolitan areas escaped the recession as of December 2009. The Baton Rouge Business Report quotes a Moody's Economy.com report that shows Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and New Orleans all moved out of the recession at that time. Alexandria, Houma-Thibodaux, Monroe and Shreveport-Bossier all remained in the recession. Louisiana's performance mirrors the nation, where about 52% of the metro areas remained in the recession in December. The full story and a link to the full map are here. 

The Moody's Economy.com site features a map that shows Louisiana as a whole in recovery. Compared to the county-by-county map of the recession that we posted a couple of months back, this shows the economy doing an exact geographic reversal. That is, the recession came to us from the coasts, but it is receding from the center out.