Indianapolis has always been one of America’s most important cities economically.  It’s certainly the transportation and agricultural hub of the Midwest.  It’s surrounded by what’s known as the “corn belt” and the agricultural employment sector certainly is based around this food.  The city is also home to quite a few companies’ headquarters and some very prestigious universities.  Eli Lilly and Purdue University top the lists for both.  Indianapolis also possesses some real optimistic spirit, and has been known in the past to dig in and find its way out of past recessions more quickly than many other major US cities that surround it.  One case in point is Detroit, which has the highest unemployment rate in the nation currently.

The cost of living in the Indianapolis area is on par with the national average.  But what makes this city so attractive are the relatively low taxes that businesses and individuals are required to pay.  It’s consistently ranked in the top to cities to do business in by many media outlets and it shows.  Indianapolis has great potential for a very strong, aggressive recovery once the economy snaps back and begins to recover itself.

Indianapolis is also home to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which hosts the Indianapolis 500 and other world class racing events.  Revenues from this event alone eclipse many other city’s tourism revenues combined.  Tourism and the restaurant and hospitality industries have suffered a little in Indianapolis, but are mostly finding that with a little optimism and a lot of clever marketing, they can get by just fine.

Indianapolis’s sports teams and nationwide appeal as a center for world class sporting events have also kept the city in the limelight and economically robust during the recession.  The NFL football team alone draws hundreds of thousands of visitors and tourists alone, and helps this city remain on the good side of the national average in terms of unemployment rates.

Indiana’s unemployment rate is very close to the nation average.  But the city of Indianapolis has a slightly lower rate than the national average.  The rate has slowly been sinking as more and more jobs have been added both in Indianapolis and around the state.  Some of the more successful sectors have been in tourism, hospitality, education, and agriculture.  The poorest performing sectors revolve around the critically-ill US auto industry and non-farm production and manufacturing jobs.  Indiana is faring the best out of the northern Midwest states when it comes to unemployment rates.

It is very likely that Indianapolis’s firecracker of an economy will explode into a major boom at the end of the recession.  Green jobs and technology are helping to create a real interest in Indianapolis for environmentally-friendly activism and related employment.  Purdue University, which has long had some of the most world-renowned engineering programs is really helping to push Indianapolis out of harm’s way and into the limelight as it attracts more and more green technology business.  In fact, new business and professional services is one of the fastest growing sectors in Indianapolis and remains an economic force to be reckoned with.  Many new jobs have been created recently, despite initial job losses in these sectors only a year ago.