Metropolitan Area Overall and Individual Economic Rankings On the following pages, we provide information for individual economic indicators and for the overall level of economic prosperity (MPI) for all 331 metro areas in Census 2000. Because the MPI is a composite measure, we believe that it is a better indicator of the general economic well-being of an urban area. For example, it is possible for a metro region to have both a relatively large college educated population and a high unemployment rate. In cases such as this, using a single indicator will not allow you to gage accurately the socioeconomic health of the region. We recognize that some may be interested in examining how one metro area compares to another along a single dimension of prosperity (i.e., per capita income or homeownership). It is for this reason that we also include data for each of the measures used to construct the MPI. For ease of navigation, we have divided the indicators into two pages, one with income-related measures, and the other with non-income based measures of prosperity. Specifically, the page with the income-based measures will allow you to compare how metro areas differ on overall prosperity (MPI), levels of median household income, per capita income, and poverty. The second page allows for a comparison of metro levels of unemployment, college educated, homeownership, professional, and vacant housing. Please select the data you would like to view Income-Based Measures and Overall Prosperity Index Non-Income Based Measures of Prosperity