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Depends on what type of industry you are talking of.

What crashed Fl and AZ was the home building industry. Retirement is/was big business in both states. Which gave us the likes of McCain etc.

If there is no base industry, then there is no industry, period.

Oh and I watched this all go on as I worked around Kingman for a few years. One builder had over 200 houses built and no buyers at the last. So they simply filed bankruptcy and let those homes go back to the bank since they couldnt afford the construction loans. THAT is what caused the home loan crash.

One of the biggest shysters on the face of the earth are realtors. To this day you can go in and talk to a real estate agent and ask them how business is going and they’ll tell you it is fantastic.

I was referring to the crash in Florida in the 80's which came in the face of all the bullshit about Florida being recession proof, a new economic model, the new capital of the Americas and all that nonsense. While the rest of the country stagflated things were pretty good in my home state of Florida but it wasn't even conceivably sustainable. But lets consider the contemporary housing angle. The houses were being built for the new arrivals, the low-skill, low-wage transients who obtained the subprime mortgages on those houses that are now in default.

The housing market is just the most visible fossil of a sunbelt economy based on its own population growth and little else. Arizona gained nothing from an influx of people coming to work in retail, or call centers or some other service industry dreck. And when the music stops in Texas you will have the same problem there from absorbing tremendous social costs for a substantially non-contributing segment of society that will up and leave to chase the $7.25 dream in the next sunbelt hot spot.

Not their fault, and not Texas or Perry's fault - but sure as hell not a model to pitch to the rest of the country.