Fall 2002

"Home is where the heart is." "A person's home is his or her castle" (updated for the new millennium). "There's a lot of gold in them thar houses." That could be the current adage, as housing in many parts of the nation and in Indiana has remained strong in a sinking, or at least lackluster, economy. With mortgage interest rates as low as they've been in forty years and many people fearful of the stock market, people's homes are an essential, and in some cases, sole asset. This issue of the IBR takes a look at those important assets in the aggregate, as seen through the Census 2000 data and the maps we've created to help visualize the information.

We also look at jobs and earnings through a detailed analysis of the decade of the 1990s. Which industries were the job engines? Which states were the most successful in terms of both job creation and earnings growth? Morton Marcus gives us the answers to those questions, plus two performance measures that don't focus solely on the big industry in each state, but rather create a cumulative score for performance in all sectors in each state.

What's next? The 2003 Outlook edition, that's what. Look for it in your mailboxes or on the web in late December. And please look at our new and improved Indiana Business Review web site. We now have the past four years of the IBR in a browser friendly format at www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr. —COR