LOS ANGELES-The Los Angeles region will likely recover fasterthan the rest of the state, but the economic recovery in Californiais going to be a slow climb at all levels, according to a new UCLAAnderson Forecast issued Tuesday. The forecast, covering marketsfrom the local level in California to the national economy,foresees a tepid recovery with unemployment levels slowlydeclining.

Forecast director Edward Leamer, in a report titled “A HomelessRecovery,” says that this time around, the economy can’t count onfree-spending consumers to boost it along. Instead, Leamer citestoday’s “frugal consumers” and says: “If the next year is going tobring exceptional growth, consumers will need to express theiroptimism in the way that really countsbuying homes andcars. And that is not going to happen if businesses continue toexpress their pessimism in the way that really countsbynot hiring workers.”

Leamer’s report is part of the second quarterly forecast by theAnderson school, which expects that the California economy isexpected to grow a bit slower than the nation’s for 2010, andslightly faster thereafter. In another element of the forecast,UCLA Anderson senior economist David Shulman says the recovery willbe “rocky” in the commercial real estate sector. “There is just toomuch debt that has to be worked through,” Shulman writes.