Big Economic Honor For Mobile

There's word of another economic prize for the City of Mobile.
Forbes Magazine has named Mobile as one of the best cities in America for recession recovery.
The magazine said it named Mobile because the economy is diverse and the city has seen job growth in different areas.
Barbara Drummond with the City of Mobile Mayor's Office said, "Mobile has been very successful in its economic initiatives and they've attracted a lot of new industries from Austal, Thyssenkrupp and, hopefully, EADS."
Mayor Sam Jones and other city officials left Friday morning for the Paris Air Show.
Earlier this week, the mayor talked about his plans when he gets there.
Mayor Jones said, "We have some meetings set up with EADS, Northrop Grumman, with three of their suppliers that we are still trying to court to come to Mobile, to bring some jobs to Mobile to improve the economy."
And the mayor's office said the Forbes article is icing on the cake.
Drummond said, "It sends a signal to those other industries that are out there that are looking for locations that Mobile has the right stuff."
Forbes said it also considered other factors in its rankings.
It cited Mobile's 8.5% unemployment rate.
The national average is 9.1%.
Forbes also mentioned incomes and home prices.
Melissa Morrissette is with LLB&B Real Estate.
She said, "In Mobile, our median sales price is about 75% of what the national average is, so you're actually getting a lot more house for the money here than you are in other places in the country."
Morrissette said the timing of when the recession hit Mobile may also have had an effect.
She said, "I think that Mobile did not start off in the recession as quickly as other people. We certainly have been affected by it, but we didn't probably have as far to fall, because it came to us later than it came to other places."
And Morrissette said some new figures on home sales for the past month show there's reason to be optimistic about the future.
According to Morrissette, "Our average sales price and our median sales price have increased in the past 30 days, so we're starting to see a tiny shift up, which is great."