In metro area, growth takes a hit

Last update: September 27, 2007 - 8:39 PM

A new snapshot of U.S. urban economies shows the Twin Cities under a cloud. But it's a picture taken from a distance.

In a study of 363 metro areas, two of every three performed better than Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington in 2005, in the federal government's first attempt to measure the dollar value of all goods and services produced in select U.S. cities.

Slowdowns in construction, finance and insurance, and arts, entertainment and recreation industries left the Twin Cities ranked No. 254 in the experimental database created by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Estimated overall economic growth in the Twin Cities was a meager 1.4 percent, after adjusting for inflation. Nationwide, metro growth averaged 3 percent in 2005.

A chief bright spot for the Twin Cities was information technology, which grew at a 9 percent pace, albeit more slowly than the double-digit gains in each of the three years before. Another major industry, manufacturing, grew at a 3 percent clip -- or more than twice the pace of the overall Twin Cities economy. But manufacturing growth, too, decelerated from earlier years.

MIKE MEYERS

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