Iowa Road to Recovery project to be featured in Sunday's Gazette

Several newspapers, working through the Iowa Newspaper Association and including The Gazette, have been busy the past two months trying to determine how the state's main industries are doing coming out of the recent recession.

You can see the results of that project in a special section of the Sunday, April 25, Gazette. The report is called The Road to Recovery: A Statewide Look at the Iowa Economy.

It's an in-depth report, thanks to the collective energy participating papers provided. It examines what's happening with Iowa's economy, how various business sectors have been affected by the recession and how they're recovering. Its scope is statewide but with plenty of examples from Eastern Iowa.

The stories tell you about the challenges industries have faced this past year and also about business that is returning, or at least shows promise of returning.

Local advertisers have chosen to support The Gazette's special section with the expectation that the stories can be an important barometer of where Iowa is headed in the near future. They have stories to tell, too.

Some participating newspapers in Iowa already have published their special reports from this project. Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Corridor readers will get added value in The Gazette's presentation, with some added local comments and graphics that bring the message a little closer to home while not ignoring the project's important statewide scope.

GazetteOnline will have the report if you want to take a digital view Sunday. And I am writing more about the project in my Sunday Gazette column.