(MONEY Magazine) – HAVING ranked the 300 largest U.S. metropolitan areas annually for five years, in July we sent reporters back to all our former No. 1 cities and No. 300 cities to see how each place is faring. What did we learn? Just how quickly local economies can change -- sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Prime examples of how the mighty can fall are the medium-size northeastern cities of Nashua, N.H. and Danbury, Conn., our top places in 1987 and 1988 respectively. This year, Nashua ranks No. 233 and Danbury has dropped to 204. Back in their glory days, their economies hummed. In the past year, however, Nashua lost 4.7% of its jobs as its major industries -- computer hardware makers and defense contractors -- took beatings. In the Danbury metro area, housing permits plummeted by 22% last year. ''When we moved here, we never realized how costly things were, and they've gotten much worse,'' says Sue Kimberley, a financial planner from Danbury profiled with her family in our 1988 article. ''Plus the state's economy has gotten so bad.'' Later this year, the Kimberleys will move to Atlanta, where Sue's husband Dick has been transferred. Our former No. 1 places from Washington State, Bremerton (1990) and Seattle (1989), have held up well, thanks to the robust Northwest economy. This year, Bremerton is No. 2. Seattle, though still a respectable 49, slipped partly because of a rising violent-crime rate and relatively expensive home values that finally declined after three years of double-digit price rises. Each of our previous No. 300 places -- Flint, Mich. ('87); Atlantic City ('88); Benton Harbor, Mich. ('89); and Allentown/Bethlehem, Pa. ('90) -- has crawled out of the cellar, though you couldn't call any of them a candidate for top honors. This year, Flint is 262, Atlantic City 244, Benton Harbor 252, and Allentown/Bethlehem 281. Although the crime rate remains high in Atlantic City, Benton Harbor and Flint, and none had substantial job growth in the past year, all are beginning to show economic glimmers. For example, in Bethlehem, part of the Allentown metro area, several businesses have opened recently, including a 1,000-person office for Dun & Bradstreet, the financial services firm. -- D.W.E.