That’s not to say that New York City and Washington, DC, which led the country out of the recession with large office gains in 2009 and 2010, are suffering. The Big Apple’s 438-million-square-foot office market leads the nation with the lowest big city office vacancy rate at 10.5%, with the capitol also showing a respectable rate of 14.6%. However, NYC had a negative 146,355 square feet of absorption in the first half of the year, and DC had negative 1.4 million square feet absorption in H1 2012, the worst by far in the country.

Outside of those 10 cities, the rest of the country didn’t see that much of a difference, Sikaitis says. “There’s just not many segments outside of technology and energy that are demonstrating signs of growth,” he says.

In Chicago, the third largest office market at 235 million square feet, the city had about negative 715, 755 square feet of absorption in the first half, the second highest total occupancy loss in the country, according to JLL’s figures. The city’s vacancy rate stands at about 19.5%.

According to Q2 data collected by New York City-based Studley and provided to GlobeSt.com, Chicago mirrors the rest of the country with a large mass of Class B and lower-rated space, but very little quality office available Like many big US cities, Chicago has no new office construction underway, with little come to market since the recession.

John Goodman, head of Studley’s Chicago office, tells GlobeSt.com that with big tenants circling the downtown, there’s a good chance ground will break on a new Chicago office tower in the next 12 months. “For tenants looking for around two-to-three floors in Class B buildings, there’s plenty of options,” he says. “But over, say, 75,000 square feet, there’s just not much available.”

He says he believes Chicago is poised to continue its pattern of strong growth the city has shown the past two decades. “I think people today, especially young people sought by the large corporations, don’t have this overriding view that they have to live on the coasts,” he says. “However, you still have Chicago as the big draw for Midwest talent.”

Sikaitis says he also believes that the cities with the largest amount of demand vs. limited quality supply should start to see growth no matter how slow the economy churns toward positive. “In cities like Chicago, most of the supply from the past strong cycle has been filled up,” he says. With development levels at just a fraction of what they’ve been historically, some cities will see new buildings regardless of fundamentals such as slow jobs and the Euro Zone concerns, Sikaitis says.