Fewer Americans filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2011 but the improvement hasn’t spread evenly across the nation.

“The drop in bankruptcies for the first half of the year shows the continued efforts of consumers to reduce their household debt, and the overall pull back in consumer credit,” said Samuel J. Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute.

As of June there were 709,303 personal bankruptcy filings this year, down 7.9% from the same period a year earlier, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute and the National Bankruptcy Research Center.

Filings in June were up 4.3% from a month earlier, though monthly tallies aren’t adjusted for seasonal swings. “The broader perspective suggests less of a concern,” said Ronald Mann, a law professor at Columbia University. “Filings were still lower than last year’s torrid rate.”

Declines so far this year are a positive indication that the flood of consumer filings has slowed. In 2010 there were more than 1.5 million personal bankruptcy filings — the largest number since Congress overhauled the system in 2005 to make it more difficult for Americans to walk away from their debts.