L.A. economy bouncing back. Well, sort of.

Among the 100 metro areas examined by the Brookings Institution, L.A. (that includes Long Beach and OC) placed in the middle of the pack for the fourth quarter of 2010. That's quite an improvement over previous quarters when Los Angeles was ranked near the bottom of the rankings. Being among the middle 20 metros places the area in some respectable company - Houston, San Diego, San Jose, and Kansas City. But let's be careful: The reason L.A. moved up has nothing to do with housing prices, unemployment or employment, three of the four determinants that Brookings uses in its quarterly survey. In those categories, the L.A. area ranked 81st, 87th and 81st, respectively. Rather, it was gross metropolitan product - the amount of overall economic activity. On that front. L.A. is in 51st spot, but more significantly, the fourth quarter showed a marked improvement over the previous three months - the 28th-best percentage increase among the 100 metros. What this seems to suggest is that the local economy has, to some degree, separated itself from the nagging problems of housing and unemployment. We'll see how long that holds up; frankly, economies can't keep growing indefinitely without more people working and a pickup in the housing market. Still, it's an interesting reflection on the L.A. area's size and durability. Here's the report.