Nationally, home prices are falling, unemployment is on the rise and the economy is expected to grow slowly-or even contract-in the first half of the year.

But some cities are doing fine.

Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country's strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation's largest metroplitian areas to ride out the current crisis.

San Antonio is right behind. It also features solid employment figures and affordable home prices that continue to rise. The others holding steady or improving include Austin & Houston Texas: Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; San Jose, Calif.; Raleigh, N.C.; Salt Lake City; and Seattle.

To find them, Forbes.com examined the country's 50 largest metro's and looked at several key measure.

They examined unemployment data supplied by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the year ending in Feb. 2008 to see which areas are most adding or subtracting jobs. Next, they looked at the BLS data on growth in non-farm payrolls, through Feb. 2008, for construction, education and health services, financial activities, information, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, natural resources and mining, professional and business services, trade, transporation and utilities, and the BLS's catch all category, "other services."

Also taking into account median home price data from the National Association of Realtors to see which area posted the largest annual gains.

Finally, the rankings were adjusted using data from Nov. 2007 report, "U.S. Metro Economies: The Mortgage Crisis." It lists each city's estimated gross metropolitian product growth by projecting how rising foreclosures and falling home prices would effect overall levels of productivity in local economies.

Texas cities fared best under the measure, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth have benefited from historically lower home prices. The availability of land-and, in some cases, little zoning-helped keep prices in these cities low. Instead of competing for homes, Texans could move to a new subdivision a little further out.