Finally! Some good news about my home state of Arkansas. The Little Rock economy is ranked as the 7th BEST in the nation by Brookings Institution with regard to the strongest metropolitan economy in the country.

This D.C. based research group studied the performance of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country to determine the impact of the recession. Ranked number one was San Antonio, Texas which was followed by four other areas in the Lonestar State. Also rounding out the top siven was Oklahoma City. The weakest economic performance is Tampa, Florida, Bradenton, Florida and the worst is Detroit, Michigan.

This was the first in a series of interactive reports which will be produced quarterly. The MetroMonitor ranks the nation’s 100 largest metro areas for their economic performance based on indicators such as employment, unemployment rates, wages, gross product, housing prices and foreclosure rates.

For more information on this very interesting report, check out Brookings and MetroMonitor.