"Communities hit hardest during the recession could continue to fall behind the rest of the country for decades, research released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project suggests.</br></br>In regions that suffered disproportionately in the recession of the early 1980s, for example, average earnings have risen at a quarter of the rate of the rest of the U.S. Employment grew more slowly, young people left the region, population growth slowed and, as a result, demand for housing weakened. A similar fate could be in store for areas of the country that faced the deepest housing and employment shocks in the latest downturn, the report warned.</br></br>""This is a structural change,"" said Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, referring to the latest recession. ""The economy is just not going to come back the way it has before.""</br></br>To avoid repeating the scenario that followed the 1980s downturn, papers commissioned by the Hamilton Project -- formed by some Clinton administration Democrats to devise policies to improve the economy -- recommended revitalization efforts targeting the worst-off communities.</br></br>Among the proposals: a government-sponsored bank that would provide loans of up to $10,000 for people who have been laid off in the past five years and are looking to move. The cost would run the government between $500 million and $800 million annually, estimated the University of Chicago's Jens Ludwig and the University of California, Berkeley's Steven Raphael, who wrote the proposal."