Webinar

The key forces shaping US metros

11 March 2026 – 4.00pm GMT (London)

online

In this panel discussion Liam Sides, Barbara Denham, and Anthony Bernard-Sasges will be delving into these core trends and considering how lower immigration, the jobless expansion, consumer bifurcation, the affordability crunch, and AI will underpin the outlook over the next few years.

The US economy continues to expand, but the story looks very different beneath the national headlines. At the state and metro level, long-running shifts are accelerating. Economic momentum keeps tilting southward, with fast-growing hubs like Austin, Dallas, and Nashville outpacing much of the country, while more industrial and public sector–oriented metros across the Midwest and Northeast struggle to keep up.

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Speakers

Liam Sides

Liam Sides is an Associate Director within Oxford Economics’ Cities & Regions team. He is responsible for global research and analysis on urban economies and provides clients with in-depth insights into sub-national trends and developments across the world. With over a decade of experience in regional economic analysis, Liam has worked extensively across a range of sectors including local growth, skills, transport, and defence.

Associate Director, Cities & Regions

Anthony Bernard-Sasges

Anthony Bernard-Sasges is a Senior Economist in the Cities & Regions forecasting team. He primarily produces research and forecasts for cities in the United States and Canada. Anthony also manages the Oxford Economics Global Cities Index and helps develop the team’s geospatial data analysis capabilities.

Senior Economist, Cities & Regions

Barbara Byrne Denham

As a Lead economist at Oxford Economics, Barbara brings a seasoned approach to the study of US cities. She works in Oxford Economics’ division of Cities and Regions analysis where she leads in writing reports on US metros. Prior to joining Oxford Economics, she worked six years for Moody’s Analytics REIS where she did similar work and wrote a number of white papers covering metro-level analyses including the Impact of the Tax and Jobs Act on Commercial Real Estate; Amazon HQ2, a Scoring Analysis; and the Economics of College Towns. Barbara’s work is frequently cited by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Crains New York Business and numerous other publications.

Prior to working at Moody’s, Barbara worked more than 20 years at various commercial real estate firms including Jones Lang LaSalle and Eastern Consolidated where she focused on writing market reports and white papers.

Barbara holds a bachelor’s in business administration from the University of Notre Dame and is a Ph. D. candidate in Economics from New York University.

Lead Economist, Cities & Regions