In my position I have the ability to keep a pulse on a fairly large arena. Basically IL, WI, and IA. I see regional differences that swing both up and down. The Rockford IL area is still fairly depressed as far as jobs and construction goes, yet Chicago and some of the burbs are picking back up robustly. Southern WI sucks, yet the North east portion is picking up. Iowa was almost unaffected from the down turn with the exception of housing starts and commercial work slowing. Both are picking back up.
With including two new stores in the last couple of years, my company is holding our own and actually improving profit by about 25% per yr since 2009.
We are on our way back folks. Its going to be slow going, but we are crawling in the right direction. 2015 will be the new 2006.