The Treasure Valley made another one of those national lists, falling somewhere between 61 and 80. Idaho leaders and local boosters aren't going to boast about this ranking.

The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution tracked the recession and recovery in 100 metropolitan areas. The Valley landed in group No. 4, the second-weakest group of 20 cities.

The Treasure Valley numbers are generally grim:

• Employment dropped by 3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, ranking No. 99 out of 100 metros.

• During the same time frame, the Valley's Gross Metropolitan Product dropped by 1.4 percent, ranking No. 78.

• Housing prices dropped by 7.6 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, ranking No. 76.

• The lone bright spot: The average wage increased by 2.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008. This placed the Valley No. 6 in the nation.

Now, let the blame game commence.

Local Republican blogger Adam Graham tries to work the Brookings report into a partisan swipe at Boise Mayor Dave Bieter and the City Council. "Heck of a job, Bieter," he writes. "Is Boise ready for some common sense in government for a change?"

It's an oversimplification, First off, Brookings looked at the economic trends across the Valley, including conservative municipalities such as Nampa, Eagle and Meridian.

Second, a cursory look at the Brookings map shows that the Valley is in the same boat with most Western metropolitan areas, including Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., Portland, and 11 metro areas in California.

The Brookings analysis suggests the Treasure Valley is Sun Belt North.

"Large swaths of the South and West ... have suffered severe employment, output, and home value declines over the past year due to the broader housing fallout. Wages in those metro areas have risen rapidly, most likely due to a slowdown in less-skilled migration to those areas, and to disproportionate losses of lower-paying jobs."

Sounds familiar.

In truth, there's blame to go around. The Valley certainly thrived on (and courted) the real estate boom. But I also think this made us complacent. We coasted on the wave and didn't doing enough to diversify our employment base.

The Brookings numbers — which will be updated quarterly — provide graphic evidence of what happens when a boom ends abruptly.

More reading: From Jill Kuraitis at NewWest.Net/Boise: Downtown Boise developer Mark Rivers says the Brookings numbers show just how much work the Valley has ahead.

“It’s not as though six months from now everything will be the way it was — it’s not. We’re hitting the reset button for the way we do things,” said Rivers. “We have to rethink, reimagine and reinvent ourselves.”

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