{"id":4680,"date":"2012-02-08T13:05:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T20:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=4680"},"modified":"2012-02-08T16:02:05","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T23:02:05","slug":"fact-check-is-boise-really-a-turnaround-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/02\/08\/fact-check-is-boise-really-a-turnaround-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: Is Boise Really a ‘Turnaround Town’?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Boise Metro Chamber<\/p>

A view of downtown Boise, Idaho<\/p><\/div>\n

CNN Money <\/em>and Realtor.com recently included<\/a> Boise on a top ten list of post-recession ‘turnaround towns’.\u00a0 They slated Boise in sixth place behind Sarasota, Fort Myers, Orlando, Phoenix and Miami.\u00a0 While it might be nice for the Gem State’s biggest city to be recognized on this kind of a list, many of the facts supporting its placement are simply false.<\/p>\n

Let’s start from the top.\u00a0 CNN Money<\/em> reports Boise’s median home price is $120,000.\u00a0 They aren’t too far off.\u00a0 According to Intermountain MLS, Boise’s median home price in January was $130,000.<\/p>\n

The post’s opening line characterizes Boise’s economy as an ‘offbeat combination of old and new’.<\/p>\n

“The logging industry still pays a lot of the bills in town, but tech jobs have also become increasingly prevalent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s not exactly true either.\u00a0 Idaho’s logging and wood products industry<\/a> is just a fraction of the state’s gross product.\u00a0 The U.S. Department of Commerce says natural resources (which includes agriculture, logging and mining) made up just 7 percent of Idaho’s GSP in 2010.\u00a0 So, Boise’s logging and wood products industries would be an even smaller percentage.\u00a0 From a jobs perspective, logging and wood products manufacturing together employ about 6,100 people statewide, according to the latest available data from the Idaho Department of Labor.\u00a0 There are more than 760,000 people in Idaho’s labor force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CNN Money<\/em> goes on to say Micron Technology is Boise’s biggest employer.\u00a0 While that was the case back in 2005<\/a>, Micron has shed some 5,000 jobs since then, allowing St. Luke’s Health Systems to grab the spot of Boise’s biggest employer<\/a> .<\/p>\n

There are signs that point to a recovering Boise.\u00a0 The city’s foreclosure rate<\/a> is going down and the unemployment rate is dropping<\/a>.\u00a0 But economists watching the state closely say Idaho’s recovery mirrors the one that’s taking place nationally, and it’s occurring at a slower clip.\u00a0 The supporting facts in this CNN Money<\/em>\/Realtor.com story just don’t add up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN Money and Realtor.com recently included Boise on a top ten list of post-recession ‘turnaround towns’.\u00a0 They slated Boise in sixth place behind Sarasota, Fort Myers, Orlando, Phoenix and Miami.\u00a0 While it might be nice for the Gem State’s biggest city to be recognized on this kind of a list, many of the facts supporting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":4681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,12],"tags":[52,135,133],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}