The Brookings Institution’s new analysis of exports per U.S. metro region has a chilling result for Albuquerque.
Of the nation’s top 100 urban areas, the Duke City ranked last in annualized export growth from 2003 to 2016. Even worse, that “growth” was negative — dropping by 2.1 percent.
In contrast, San Antonio’s annualized growth was 8.1 percent, Houston’s was 7.0 percent, and Salt Lake City’s was 6.4 percent. No metro region in the top 100 other than Albuquerque experienced a decline. (See chart above for the results of cities in states that border New Mexico.)
And Albuquerque’s slump isn’t the result of woes experienced a decade ago. Between 2015 and 2016, “growth” was -8.3 percent, a standard that only four of the top 100 cities — Youngstown, Toledo, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa — failed to beat.
The Chinese are coming to Albuquerque in October. That’s good news for a city that badly needs a turnaround in its export economy.
Alas, is there some sort of bottleneck in exporting some stuff from Sandia Labs?
– Whoa! apparently in collecting data, the Brookings Inst. overlooked the number of UNM grads we export.