See how forward-thinking cities, like Miami, are utilizing the impact of the recession to rebuild their city and their economy.

Susan Piperato | NREI

The push toward downtown revitalization that began in the 1990s has survived the Great Recession. But in this gradually improving economy, attracting development isn’t easy.

Florida’s major metro regions rank high and low in categories relating to: employment change, unemployment rate change, gross metropolitan product change, and housing price index change.

Brookings.edu

Metro Monitor’s interactive maps illustrate the economic climate of the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan areas. Each map displays metropolitan data for a particular metric, with areas classified by quintiles (groupings of 20). Quintile groups are derived from rankings of economic performance.

Plans for train service between Miami and Orlando could mean up to 6,000 more jobs and the potential for 3 million cars to be off the road in Florida. Read more about it in this article.

Kevin Gale | South Florida Business Journal

Florida East Coast Industries is planning a $1 billion project to develop a three-hour Miami-to-Orlando passenger train service by 2014, using a right of way that runs through the downtown areas of South Florida’s coastal cities.

Florida is taking the lead as one of the best performing in terms of job creation, and several other economic factors. Read on to hear more about the forecasted recovery in Florida, and three other ‘Sand States.’

Steve Matthews | Bloomberg Businessweek

Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada are the states where homeowners enjoyed the most extreme runup in prices—until the subprime crisis sent the whole housing industry into its sharpest contraction in decades.

As the US-Korea Trade Agreement starts today, will Florida’s export business grow and help the economy?

Francisco Sanchez | Tampa Tribune

Good news for Florida’s businesses: The U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement officially takes effect today. As a result, local firms have more opportunities to sell their goods and services in the 12th-largest economy in the world.

By Mark Alexander, CCIM

We are finally seeing signs of recovery in the long-slumping commercial real estate market in southwest Florida. A full recovery will certainly take some time, but recent statistics from Costar show that we bottomed out over 2011 in the three main sectors of commercial real estate in southwest Florida. The market is now showing signs of movement in a positive direction. The period over the last ten years has been one of unprecedented change in the commercial real estate market that is unlikely to be seen again in our children’s lifetimes.

Mike Vogel | Florida Trend

Downtown Fort Lauderdale this year will see a surge of construction — the first of hundreds of apartment units developers have in the works. Apartment projects also are under way in suburban Broward and Palm Beach County.

Sarasota has been busy taking in top honors for categories related to vacationing and retiring. Lots of great information to take in about Sarasota as a destination for relaxation!

Trevor Shirley | Southern Broadcast Corp

First it was the #1 beach in the country, and now Sarasota has been named the top destination for families on spring break.

For information about Sarasota as a spring break destination, click HERE. Or to find out more about Sarasota’s #1 Beach ranking, click HERE.

Another article has Sarasota taking top honors among best places to retire.

See why Florida is ranked #4 in the nation for exporting and why this makes it a great place to do business.

Megan Anderson | Orlando Business Journal

Florida remained the nation’s fourth-largest export state with a record $64.8 billion in origin exports last year, according to Enterprise Florida Inc.

Is a manufacturing rebound in sight? Orlando believes that the small companies will not only bring jobs to Central Florida, but also keep the jobs here as well.

Richard Burnett | Orlando Sentinel

After years of lab work, Dan Rini is finally setting up a factory to make high-tech, air-conditioned uniforms for the military. But unlike many U.S. factories of recent decades, it’s not in China, India or, for that matter, South Carolina or Alabama.