Four of the top five metro areas in the 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best Performing Cities Index are in Texas. The institute says in a statement that all of the top succeeding metro areas avoided the worst of the economic declines driven by falling housing markets and job losses in manufacturing and global trade. "'Best performing' sometimes means retaining what you have," says Ross DeVol, Milken's director of regional economics and lead author of the study. "In a period of recession, the index highlights metros that have adapted to weather the storm. As we move forward in a recovery that still lacks jobs, metros will be further tested in their ability to sustain themselves." The top 10 performing metro areas of 2009 are: (1) Austin-Round Rock, Texas; (2) Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, Texas; (3) Salt Lake City, Utah; (4) McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas; (5) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas; (6) Durham, North Carolina; (7) Olympia, Washington; (8) Huntsville, Alabama; (9) Lafayette, Louisiana; and (10) Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina. The bottom five metros according to the index are (196) Holland-Grand Haven, Michigan; (197) Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Michigan; (198) Toledo, Ohio; (199) Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Michigan; and (200) Flint, Michigan.
