Operating like a wayback machine, the AP collates statistics from October 2007 and March 2009 measuring unemployment (via BLS), residential and commercial foreclosures (via RealtyTrac), and bankruptcies (via court filings) and presents them unweighted. Foreclosures are likely undercounted, because RealtyTrac does not compile information from counties with under 25,000 residents; without publicly available foreclosure information for these counties, the AP gives these counties zero-weight. These areas are typically central Texas, and non-urban areas of Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Kentucky.

The usual suspects (Las Vegas, Florida, Phoenix, Inland Empire, Rust Belt) are all here, but remember that the graphics show rate of change, not absolute numbers. Thus it was surprising to be reminded that Las Vegas/Clark County had a March 2009 foreclosure rate of 7.81% and an October 2007 foreclosure rate of 3.53%.

Highlights from the AP:

The current recession spread like an epidemic from isolation to ubiquity, marching from sequestered pockets of foreclosure to a nationwide explosion of misery as unemployment overtook foreclosures as the dominant misfortune of this recession.

Places with technology-based economies were recession-proof for a while but aren’t now.

Places with large numbers of government jobs — state capitals, university towns, communities with concentrations of hospitals — remain fairly recession-proof. These are places like Columbia, Mo.; Madison, Wis.; the Raleigh, N.C., area; and Athens, Ga.

State government is not hurting that much — at least, not yet.

The regions we look to for our traditional sources of energy, for our coal and oil — Wyoming, West Virginia and the like — have generally not been hit as hard.

While bankruptcy declarations are happening everywhere, they tend to be higher in the South because of such things as low wages, state laws that give power to creditors and a culture that’s more familiar with the bankruptcy option.

Among counties with 25,000-plus residents, no place has been hit harder than Elkhart County, Ind., and that 15 of the 20 American counties hit hardest by the recession in the past year are in six states — Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Although the note for editors says “much of the Great Plains region remains relatively unscathed by the nation’s financial meltdown,” I would recommend they overlay this map with one showing population loss to update their definition of ‘unscathed’.

Review and make appropriate plans. I strongly recommend looking closely at the data and using a comparative approach to benchmark your particular area against neighboring jurisdictions.