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It is highly unlikely that anyone will quibble with the notion that the past decade has been a tough one for the Greensboro economy. During the early 2000s, we struggled to cope with the significant loss of manufacturing jobs. Just as we were about to turn the corner in 2007, we were knocked flat on our backs by a national recession that began in late 2008, and we have yet to fully recover.

Recently, my esteemed colleague Don Jud, professor emeritus at UNCG, pointed out in a column ("Creating Triad Jobs," Feb. 7, News & Record) that since 2000, the Greensboro-High Point MSA has lost more than 20,000 jobs and ranks 19th in the nation in job losses over the past decade. He also suggested that Greensboro is "not well positioned for high employment growth going forward" -- pretty grim stuff.

That said, there are several reasons to be hopeful as our community continues to struggle to reinvent itself. Surprisingly, it is the Goldilocks fable that may provide some insight into this process as we look for ways to enhance our competitive advantage.

The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears revolves around a little girl who walked into a house owned by the three bears. Goldilocks was hungry and found three bowls of porridge on the kitchen table. The first bowl was too hot and the second bowl was too cold but the final bowl was just about right and she happily ate it all up.

In many respects, Greensboro is a Goldilocks economy in that we have never had the dramatic boom-bust economies that have predominated in places like California, Nevada and Florida. We have rarely been too hot or too cold. Of course, some folks may be thinking the economy is a tad too cold right now given the high rate of unemployment, but a recent Forbes magazine ranking has suggested that the Greensboro economy is actually more resilient than we might expect. In an assessment of cities that offered the "biggest bang for the buck," Greensboro ranked 30th best in the nation out of a survey of the country's top 100 metropolitan areas. Raleigh-Cary ranked 21st and Charlotte was 56th.

In collecting the statistics, Forbes examined foreclosures as a percentage of housing units, vacancies, unemployment rates, a three-year job-growth forecast, a three-year home price forecast, housing affordability, median real estate taxes and median travel time to work. The end result: Greensboro performed very well on several measures, especially in terms of our affordable house prices, low taxes and reasonable commute times. Although we're not a flashy market, it appears the Greensboro economy is built on a reasonable foundation that has avoided the excessive highs and lows of some of our competitors.

The "State of the City" reports that I prepare each year for the Greensboro Partnership seem to confirm some of these trends, although it is certainly not all good news. For example, it is abundantly clear that Greensboro is in the midst of a long-term, generational transformation away from basic manufacturing. However, despite the job losses and high unemployment rates, the city has made significant wage gains in the financial, professional and education/health sectors.

Also, Greensboro's population is young (ranked third among peer cities, which included Charlotte, Chattanooga, Columbia, S.C., Durham, Greenville, S.C., Louisville, Raleigh, Richmond and Winston-Salem) and diverse. We are now maintaining the 20- to 34-year-old segment of the population, confirming that our community's focus on attracting and retaining young professionals, as well as downtown development, is bearing fruit. The African American and Hispanic populations grew by a combined 3.1 percent from 2005 to 2008, while the white population declined from 51.6 to 51.1 percent.

Additionally Greensboro is a very affordable place to live, especially useful in attracting new private investment and retaining young professionals. In 2008, the average house price was $143,100 -- the second-lowest in the peer-city group. Our public schools are also improving. We have a lower high school dropout rate and a higher graduation rate than the four other North Carolina cities (Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, Charlotte) included in the "2010 State of the City Report."

Of course, we still have a lot of work to do. The overall performance of our local economy leaves much to be desired. Our elected officials need to have a laser-like focus on growing jobs. We might want to consider consolidating the city and county planning departments to provide a more efficient form of land-use planning. Perhaps we also need to do a better job of holding back key parcels of land near major roads for future industrial development as the FedEx hub finally takes off. We need as well to explore better ways to nurture local entrepreneurs and encourage innovation.

Perhaps one of the sea changes in the way we conduct business in Greensboro is illustrated by the way in which the local universities and businesses now partner in developing the local economy. Major investments like the Gateway University Research Park, the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, and the proposed UNCG Pharmacy School would never have left the drawing board without the support of both the major universities and local businesses.

When I first arrived in Greensboro in the late-1980s, university-industry partnerships were simply not a part of the equation.

For all of these reasons, I feel upbeat about our future prognosis despite the recently grim economic news. Call me a naïve booster, but I think we are well prepared for the coming decade as we look for ways to enhance our competitive advantage. We just need to keep focused on creating and attracting higher-paying jobs in targeted industry clusters (such as nanotechnology, regenerative medicine, transport logistics, biotechnology, financial services and advanced manufacturing), while at the same time growing our centers of education.

Of course, it would also be nice if my porridge was just a little bit warmer.

Keith G. Debbage is a professor of geography at UNCG. The "2010 State of the City Report" is available on his Web site at www.uncg.edu/~kgdebbag