Looking for a home in a community that's adapting well to the new economic order?

Seek a region teeming with knowledge-based jobs and global trade. Look for a dynamic, fast-changing economy steeped in competition. And ferret out a digital economy built on an infrastructure of technological innovation.

And don't forget, while regions that operate out of the economic box can be boons for your personal goals and global progress, they can just as quickly become outposts of economic volatility that wreak havoc on the best laid plans.

Ask anyone who lives in Silicon Valley.

Ground zero for the new economy, Silicon Valley led the nation into its longest economic expansion ever. The region also led the nation into dot combustion when the bubble began to burst. The area emerges from recession fraught with economic uncertainty leaving it short of the top of the economic pecking order, according to "The 2002 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the States".

The index will make your quest for a home on the new economic range easy, but leaves it up to you to decide if you want risk putting down stakes where the new economy has bubbled up most.

The index is the work of Washington, D.C.-based Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic Party think tank for so-called "progressive" politics and public policy. The institute ranked each of the 50 states based on innovation-oriented public policy that fosters the underpinnings of the so-called "new economy" -- an overhaul of traditional approaches to economic growth with a new order based on boosting skills, entrepreneurship and technology.

As it turned out, the Top 10 states that best exemplified adoption of the new economy were states in the Northeast and West. They were:

1. Massachusetts
2. Washington
3. California
4. Colorado
5. Maryland
6. New Jersey
7. Connecticut
8. Virginia
9. Delaware
10. New York

Less economically hip in the new way were states from the South and Rocky Mountain regions. They were:

41. South Carolina
42. Kentucky
43. South Dakota
44. North Dakota
45. Louisiana
46. Wyoming
47. Alabama
48. Arkansas
49. Mississippi
50. West Virginia

To achieve a ranking, each state was rated on 21 factors in five categories:

Published: June 19, 2002

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A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.