The Brookings Institute (www.brookings.edu) has tracked the nation's largest 100 metropolitan areas for economic performance and named the North Port/Bradenton/Sarasota region as among the top 40 strongest metro areas in the country. Brookings looks at four categories when they rank metro regions: employment change; unemployment rate change; gross metropolitan product change; and housing price index change. Click here for more information. 

Original article  published April 2, 2012, in Biz941 Daily (www.biz941.com).