St. Louis soars in global economic study
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
December 1, 2010
By Steve Giegerich
An international survey of 150 regions ranks the St. Louis metropolitan area 54th in the context of projected economic growth in the aftermath of a recession that left no corner of the globe untouched.
Prior to the downturn, St. Louis held the 133rd spot in the "Global MetroMonitor" compiled by the Brookings Institution and the London School of Economics.
The ranking provides welcome news at a time when business leaders are consciously positioning the region in the global marketplace, including an effort to create a Chinese cargo hub, said Dick Fleming, president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.
"The message that we've gone from number 133 out of 150 to number 54 is certainly a very positive one," he said.
St. Louis ranked 11th among U.S. metropolitan areas behind Austin, Texas; Dallas, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Seattle, Nashville, Tenn.; San Antonio and Charlotte, N.C.
The rankings rely on factors including past economic performance, employment trends and growth potential.
St. Louis, in the analysis of the report, is "on the road to full recovery." The study bases the conclusion on what it termed "long-run productivity increases" in "important manufacturing sectors that occurred alongside slow and steady declines in the number of people employed in those sectors."
Denny Coleman, president and CEO of the St. Louis Economic Council, credited the elevated ranking on a local economic shift, in which positions in health care, pharmaceuticals, information technology and financial services are gradually replacing those in the once dominant heavy manufacturing sector.
"Those are not just growth jobs, those are well-paying jobs," Coleman said.
It helped, he added, that St. Louis avoided getting swept up in the housing bubble that inflated economic growth in Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada. Largely because of the housing crisis only one U.S. city -- Austin -- finished among the top 30 metropolitan regions ranked in the study.
Topping the list were Istanbul, Turkey; Shenzhen, China; Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; and Shanghai, China.
Holding down the bottom five rankings were Las Vegas; Tessaloniki, Greece; Barcelona, Spain; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Dublin, Ireland.
Fleming predicted the bump St. Louis received in the study will resonate as the city as well as the global marketplace reposition themselves in the aftermath of the recession.
"There are rankings, and there are rankings," Fleming said.
"And I think a Brookings report is quite different than those that list the 'Best Place to Do This' or 'Best Place to Do That' by someone trying to sell a magazine."
