6. Austin, Texas. Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips kicks off the 2010 South by Southwest festival at the Austin Music Hall in Austin. The state capital, college town, and high-tech center is one of only three large metro areas whose employment has fully recovered from the great recession. Only in the dot-com recession of 2001 did its employment fail to fully rebound after two years.
PHOTO: Tom Zinn/WENN.com/Newscom/File
