America's Biggest City Governments Are Still Struggling to Recover From the Recession

As we begin to think about the next round of budgeting for Tacoma, a recent Pew Charitable Trust American Cities Project report shows the budget realities for America's 30 largest metropolitan areas - and it doesn't look all that good.

Like Tacoma, 29 of the 30 dipped into reserve funds, and most made cuts to spending, including on parks and public safety.

Still, only nine of the cities studied saw revenues rebound to pre-2007 levels by 2011. The report looks at factors that have contributed to the tough situation, and the fact that many "solutions" to budget shortfalls are only stop-gap measures for the short-term.

Can we learn any lessons from this report as Tacoma turns to its next biennial budget?