Dive Brief:

• Lest good news obscure reality, a look at the 150 largest cities in the U.S. shows that several have done nicely in recovering from the recession, but there are others where builders and contractors likely do not want to be.
• The rankings were done by a personal-finance social website called wallethub.com and used 18 metrics to come up with a score.
• Six of the top 10 recovered cities were in Texas – Laredo, Irving, Dallas, Corpus Christi, Lubbock and Garland – with Laredo and Irving leading the nation in the height of their bounce-back.

Dive Insight:

The list came out as a bankruptcy trial for Detroit is nearing a start and it obviously is not one of the winners. Home prices fell 65% since the recession officially ended. The biggest home-price increase was in New Orleans, up 64%. Since 2008, 13 municipalities declared bankruptcy, which until then a lot of people would have wondered if it was even possible.