Who Will Recover First?

We recently told you which cities in the world are most likely to be destroyed by an asteroid impact. While congress argues about tax and spending cuts, we can now tell you which US metro region is most likely to come out of the current ECONOMIC impact relatively unscathed.

Believe it or not, despite all the Congressional wailing about budget cuts, Washington, DC is a very good place to be. Other major cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle and Pittsburgh also fare well on the list–but Los Angeles, Miami and Las Vegas do not. Rochester, Minnesota, tops the list. However, College Station-Bryan, Texas, would not be so lucky.

Researchers who are using a new online tool to measure more than 360 US metros for their capacity to weather acute and chronic stresses–ranging from gradual economic decline to rapid population gains to the earthquakes and floods of climate change–rank these two regions first and last, respectively. They’ve found that, overall, Northeastern and Midwestern regions tend to be more resilient than those in the South or West, largely because these regions earn high scores for affordability, the size of their health-insured population, rates of homeownership and metropolitan stability, as measured by recent population change.

Researcher Kathryn A. Foster says, "What (this study) does tell us is that some regions are structurally more prepared than others, and thus have greater capacity to bounce back in the wake of stress."

When it comes to the stress of climate change, the Master of the Key told Whitley all about it when he burst into his Toronto hotel room in 1998 and started talking, while Whitley frantically took notes. Those notes became the book The Key, which was first published on this website. A new edition, with a forward which tells how many of MOTKE’s predictions have come true, is in bookstores NOW! When it comes to economic stress, this is a constant problem for this website. So if you love us, SHOW us: It’s a real bargain–it costs less than a latte a WEEK to subscribe today (and you get SO MUCH in return!)