What's the biggest challenge facing urban areas these days? Some might say problems with infrastructure, and others might say a lack of adequately trained employees. This paper from September 2011 by staff members at the Brookings Institution takes a close look into the world of economic recovery in metropolitan areas in the United States. Specifically, the work examines the problems involving...

The Census Bureau has recently released the fifth edition of the State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, which compares the nation's states and metropolitan areas in everything from banking and births to wages and welfare. Users can view a number of state and metro rankings tables in HTML or download the entire publication in .pdf format. The Data Book also serves as a guide to sources of data from...