LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) – They may seem like paradise to those trying to escape bitter cold, but warm-weather cities can make for a pretty lousy climate for business, at least according to a MarketWatch survey.

One reason is the bursting of the real-estate bubble. The linchpin for much of the nation’s current economic turmoil took a toll on sunny regions where speculators invaded the market and kept flipping properties.

That was especially true in the twin cities of Tampa-St. Petersburg, the only new entry to the bottom 10 list this year. Area economists now say that 2009 will be a “lost year” economically because of it.

“You can just write it off right now,” said Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida. In fact, Miami was close to making the bottom 10 this year for many of the same reasons.

In many ways, however, the inherent problems confronting the rest of the bottom 10 remain until the regions find ways to pull themselves up – cold regions that relied heavily on industry and have yet to adapt to new economic realities.

Starting with the worst, the bottom 10 this year are:

 

50. New Orleans – 62 points: The Big Easy had an even rougher year than last, as the region still struggles to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. But with only two Fortune 1000 companies, no Forbes private companies, one S&P company and three Russell firms, the region was crippled from the start.

New Orleans would have improved its odds had mining concern Freeport McMoRan

FCX, , ) not left for the Phoenix area.

The figures will only get worse for small business when new data is released next year, since the census bureau’s data only covers up to 2005. A large portion of the small-business community was devastated when Katrina struck in September of that year.

While many residents still are not living within the Orleans Parish, they have crowded into other nearby parishes, making the metro region close in population to what it was prior to Katrina.

 

49. Buffalo – 80 points: This upstate New York region does suffer from the ill effects of cold weather, and the fact that many of its mainstay heavy industries fell by the wayside.

Buffalo tumbled by 46 total points and thus fell two places in the rankings. It nearly beat out New Orleans for the bottom spot as well.

Buffalo’s rankings in many of the business metrics stayed consistent, but much of its slide was due primarily to a statistical anomaly last year. It ranked high in job growth as it managed – up to that point in the decade – to add a small number of jobs despite losing population.

This year, however, that job growth figure turned negative and Buffalo slid to the bottom 10 in that category.

 

48. Tucson – 111 points: This southern Arizona city is the smallest of the 50 metro areas surveyed, but some there think it’s getting a raw deal.

Sure, there are virtually no businesses that locate there – Freeport McMoRan is a prime example of a company that chose Phoenix instead when it moved from New Orleans. The city has no public or private firms on the Fortune, Forbes or S&P lists.

It lost two of its Russell 2000 companies in the last year, helping it to drop nine points in its overall score. Further, it ranked second-worst in the small-business category.

But Tucson ranked in the top 10 in the jobless category, and in the top third in population growth, all of which helped it to remain in the same ranking as last year.

A sizable military and aerospace presence has helped the region prosper along with tourism, and kept its jobless rate low. But it could face trouble should either of those two industries stumble, says Marshall J. Vest, economist at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

“That’s what drives the Tucson economy,” he said. “It’s not very well diversified.”

The region’s population has swelled in recent years as retirees continue to gather there. And year-round living is becoming more attractive as Tucson’s climate is somewhat more moderate than Phoenix’s. Its higher elevation keeps the city about 5-10 degrees cooler.

That hasn’t helped, however, when it comes to attracting new companies, Vest says.

“If a company is looking to expand in Arizona, they’re going to look at Phoenix first,” he said.