Spokane is the third largest metropolitan area in the state, following the Seattle-Everett corridor and Tacoma. It is the transportation, health care and business services center for much of eastern Washington, as well as northern Idaho and western Montana. The Spokane area, including Kootenai County in northern Idaho, also houses a growing high-tech hub of firms in electronics and computer-related hardware and services. With three universities offering programs at Spokane's Riverside in-city campus, the advanced technology components of Spokane's economy may continue to expand in the years ahead.

Spokane's workforce has grown steadily since the end of the recession in 2002, with a peak growth rate of 3.4 percent reached in 2006. The growth rate has since slowed but is still a respectable 2.4 percent as of October, showing the strength of the metropolitan center of the "Inland Empire." Agricultural and mining products flow through Spokane on rails and highways. This base in natural resource industries has given Spokane a distinctly different cyclical pattern than that of the Puget Sound region. Spokane's growth was far stronger in the early years of the recovery in 2002 and 2003 than was the case in the Puget Sound. That strength early in the business cycle is demonstrated by the long-term growth number in the table, 11.8 percent since October 2002, compared with Seattle's 10.9 percent expansion over the same period.

Paul Sommers is a professor at the Institute of Public Service and Albers School of Business at Seattle University.