California's Southern Discomfort

New Geography reports:

We know this was a harsh recession, followed by, at best, a tepid recovery for the vast majority of Americans. But some people and some regions have surged somewhat ahead, while others have stagnated or worse.

Greater Los Angeles fails to make the grade. In per capita growth of gross domestic product since 2010, according to analyst Aaron Renn, our region ranks a very mediocre 38th out of 52 metro areas, with a measly 1.5 percent, well below the national average of 3.8 percent. It places behind up-and-comers among the Texas cities, Oklahoma City and some tech-oriented clusters – Silicon Valley ranked second, after Houston. These places have growth rates roughly twice those of the Southland.

When we wanted to drill down to the more local level, and analyze what is happening by county, we needed to go to the Census Bureau, as opposed to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, where we could glean what is happening in our communities. Our analysis is based on those figures, and neither of us hopes the Southern California region continues to stagnate or decline.

The great moments of Blue America.