I see the current situation as a plateau. The credit card debt issue could cause the US to re-enter a recession. Situations in many areas are still not good. We just returned from Atlantic City and it indeed was very slow. I attributed to being the slow time of year but others have said it is suffering much worse than because of the season.
The Albany, NY area is supported greatly by being the Capital of New York and has many state jobs there. Just to the west, Schenectady (home of General Electric, one of the worlds largest "real companies"), Scotia, and Amsterdam look more like the economically destroyed areas around Detroit.
I am cautiously optimistic, but I expect that bad things are yet to come.
I know this area well, so I can tell you nothing is moving in Albany. I use to live in Schenectady when I graduated from college in 1996. The only thing holding Albany together are those state jobs. Otherwise it d be just like points west('Cuse, and Buffalo). There are internal problems with Scotia, Amsterdam that make them worse than Detroit. These cities have an insular way of thinking and being managed that you pretty say they deserve what they get.
Downstate, you saw much in the Catskill restaurants because you were there on the weekends when NYC-ers took a cheap break and drove their Subarus, Volvos, Saabs and hybrid Toyotas there looking to antique and pass the day. If you were there on a Thursday you d see a difference.
In NYC, I think the people who were doing bad were ALWAYS doing bad, and those who are doing good, were ALWAYS doing good. I ll the check to check notion but NYC is more insulated than other cities because of the large degree of self sufficiency and high talent pool it has.
In Miami, when I lived there the US Bankruptcy Court was the busiest in the SE US(before Katrina ruined NO, and the economic disaster).
In the DR, being heavily tourism based it depends on who you know to determine if the recession is over. I have a friend who lost her job at a company that makes electrical conduits and coaxial cables because of the drop off in demand worldwide. Her son lost his job at the duty-free shop at Santiago Int'l Airport. The airfares(from NYC) arent particularly lower in my opinion, well maybe they are but the airport taxes dont seem to go down do they?
I dont know if it will take til 2030 to rebound itself but I think it will go on for about another 3 years. Cobra is right(for once) that once the commercial RE hits the fan, the doodoo will require another bailout, because many banks have more wrapped into that that they did in Residential RE.
And I do think that alot of the people are credit carding their affluence here and there. That may lead others to presume that they are wealthy versus just high on a large credit balance.