Economic Clouds Dim Sunbelt's Prosperity

Deep Recession Sharply Altered U.S. Jobless Map. (The New York Times, 9/27/2011)

Excerpt: For decades, the nation’s economic landscape consisted of a prospering Sun Belt and a struggling Rust Belt. Since the recession hit, though, that is no longer the case. Unemployment remains high across much of the country — the national rate is 9.1 percent — but the regions have recovered at different speeds.

Now, with the concentration of the highest unemployment rates in the South and the West, some economists wonder if it is an anomaly of the uneven recovery or a harbinger of things to come.