A positive outlook for San Diego’s economy

Recovery appears to be taking shape

By Dean Calbreath, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

When you’ve hit rock bottom, the old saying goes, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Which is one explanation for the growing signs that San Diego’s economy, slowly and unsteadily, is creeping toward recovery.

The latest positive news came yesterday from the index of leading economic indicators by the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego. For the first time since April 2004, all of the economic criteria that USD uses to evaluate the local economy — housing permits, want ads, consumer confidence, the employment rate, local stock prices and national economic growth — were pointing up in December, suggesting a positive outlook for 2010.

“The indicators have been moving up for nine months in a row now,â€