PHOENIX — A report painted a bright economic picture for both the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.

Brookings Mountain West and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas looked at 10 major metro areas of the Mountain West, which, as a group, outperformed the national economy during the third quarter of 2014.

The old saying goes - How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. For Anthony LaBounty, it took years of practice and hard work before having his original composition performed at the Mecca for classical music in New York City.

Phoenix topped a list of major metropolitan areas across the U.S. Mountain West for regional job growth in the third quarter of 2014.

The metro area's 1.1 percent gain was more than double the national average – but about half the normal post-recession rate – which was good enough to place it atop the Brookings Mountain West Monitor, an economic review published with University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Las Vegas doesn’t get much credit for it, but it really is a literary sort of city. Think about all the times over the years that Las Vegas has served as fodder for authors, journalists, novelists and anybody else who felt moved to put pen to paper and tell us who we are and how we got here. In fact, there’s so much Las Vegas lit out there, the real problem is: Where does an inquisitive reader begin?