Three Upstate NY cities are in the top ten metro areas in the U.S. with increased construction jobs from February 09 to February 10, according to the Associated Contractors of America. Syracuse tied for third place nationally, with Albany coming in sixth and Ithaca eighth nationally. What do the numbers mean? Clearly, the Upstate NY region was not affected by the housing bust that much of the country saw over that period. At the same time, there were a number of large institutional projects by colleges, universities and health care centers in the three cities. But there could be more at play. The Syracuse-Ithaca corridor is at the center of a large green building, and green retrofit market, and a strong hold for the Upstate chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. There's reason to believe that a strong focus on green building technologies -- a cluster for which this region is gaining international recognition -- could be part of this surge.
Missing from the list were states that traditionally had been thought of as high growth meccas -- Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, California. Upstate New York dominated the list.
