A six-state study on the effects of the recession shows Ogden and Provo have fared better in many ways than other Western metropolitan areas.
The study was done jointly by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
"Ogden has a lot of jobs in the public sector. It also has a fairly diverse economy, that has helped it," said Jonathan Rothwell, a senior research analyst at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.
The authors of the report used data from prerecession through September for Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. They describe the group of states as the Intermountain West, and compared the group's 27 metro areas to the rest of the country.
"In many Mountain region locations, the sheer abruptness of the shift from hypergrowth early in the decade to a severe contraction in the last year has spawned a sense of almost existential whiplash," the authors wrote in a summary of the study.
Some of the study data included Clearfield as part of the Ogden metro area, a common practice among economists.
The report points out:
* Collectively, the 10 large Intermountain West metros have suffered disproportionately in the recession compared to the rest of the country and other large metros.
* In terms of recovery, the region also lags, but is largely moving in the same direction as the rest of the country in that Gross Metropolitan Production (GMP) rose from the second quarter to the third in every metro, while job growth remains elusive. In this respect, GMP expanded during the third quarter of 2009 in every metro, with output growth ranging from Denver's tepid 0.3 percent increase to Ogden's robust 1.7 percent growth. Ogden and Phoenix, for example, were hit especially hard with new job losses of more than 1.5 percent in the quarter. With that said, nine of the 10 larger Mountain metros (Ogden being the exception) were losing jobs at a slower rate in September than they had been in the quarter before.
* Overall, the major metros of the Intermountain West have been registering highly uneven economic performance even as the nation began an economic recovery. In this respect, Las Vegas, Boise and Phoenix have all seen massive losses in jobs. Colorado Springs and Ogden have also weathered the downturn better than the average U.S. metro.
* Heavily influencing the region's below-average aggregate profile on economic performance is the severe distress afflicting Las Vegas, Phoenix and Boise -- three metros that have been heavily hit by the collapse of the housing bubble.
"Ogden is less dependent on the housing bubble. It did have a higher share than average from across the country of employment in housing and construction, but not nearly as bad as other places," added Rothwell.
The authors said metropolitan education levels, higher in places like Provo, plus a concentration in such industries as health services and related social services, seem to have protected some metros from the worst economic stress.
The study also shows house prices have not yet stabilized in the Intermountain West and the region's collective rate of bank-owned properties remains high.
The authors made other conclusions, finishing with a reference to a well-known Western writer:
"These difficulties, then," the study says, "and the particular experience of the Intermountain West, are going to require patience and creativity in the region that Utah writer Wallace Stegner called the 'native home of hope.' "
The UNLV/Brookings group plans to further study the Western states for economic data.
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