The Brookings Institution’s MetroMonitor is a great resource for economic performance at the scale of the metropolitan area. It contains data that tracks economic performance from 1993 to the end of 2011 spanning the entire globe (click here to read a summary of economic change from 2010-2011). The data is organized into the following categories: Overall Rankings, Income Growth, Employment Growth, and Industrial Structure. In addition to an interactive map (see screenshot below), the MetroMonitor also contains summary reports for each respective metro area that shows a breakdown of the aforementioned categories (for example, click here to see the report for Hartford, CT).

For an explanation of the importance of the scale of the metropolitan area in the global economy, watch the video above. The video explains three major findings regarding Brookings’ research regarding metro areas and the global economy: 1. The global economy is led by metro areas, 2. The Great Recession accelerated a shift in the metro map, and 3. The macro and metro scale are important for economic growth. Also, check out this article by Alan Berube, Senior Fellow and Research Director at Brookings. Berube discusses why local economic growth is important given recent global events, like the Great Recession and Arab Spring, and how local economic growth can be the catalyst for a sustained economic recovery. For more regarding economic recovery, visit our earlier post regarding the MetroMonitor.