San Antonio’s Economic Progress
March 15, 2017
The 2008 Great Recession brought much hardship for the nation but not for the city of San Antonio. Brooking’s Metro Monitor report showed San Antonio as one of 11 U.S cities that made gains between 2010 and 2015. Brooking’s report focuses on researching metropolitan economies and showed San Antonio as performing above average in total job growth, productivity and the standard of living, but below-average in wages and employment rate.
The rise of oil and gas drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale area may have played a major role as to why San Antonio saw a 5.6 percent increase in productivity from 2010 to 2015. The report, however, does not reflect the recent oil price drops from 2016 because 2015 statistics are the most recent ones available.
San Antonio has seen consistent job growth since 2010 and with an increase in job growth comes an increase in housing demand. San Antonio Board of Realtors CEO and President Angela Shields said in an email. “Housing here has remained affordable compared to other cities; and with a sound economy fueled by continual job growth and rising income levels, we expect more and more people to have the means to achieve their homeownership goals.” More opportunity is yet to come for the great city of San Antonio and broad economic gains are surely on the horizon.