Metro Area Gross Domestic Product

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The Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with the preliminary numbers for 2013 metro area GDP (see the press release). Here is a spreadsheet with per capita GDP data for all large metros.

We’ve now got enough data that it’s worthwhile to start tracking the trend vs. a 2010 base instead of 2000. With that, here are the top ten large metros by real per capita GDP:





Rank Metro Area 2013
1 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 100,115
2 San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA 78,844
3 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 74,701
4 Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH 74,643
5 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 73,461
6 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX 72,258
7 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA 69,074
8 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA 68,810
9 Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 66,870
10 Salt Lake City, UT 62,008

San Jose cracks the $100,000 barrier, though that’s in part to the Bay Area being split into two metros, and the base year for constant dollar calculations getting switched from 2005 to 2009. But still impressive.

This list is similar to what we’ve seen before. But how are things changing? Let’s look at the top ten large metros for percent change in their real per capita GDP from 2010 to 2013:

Rank Metro Area 2010 2013 Pct Change
1 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX 63,816 72,258 13.23%
2 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 89,806 100,115 11.48%
3 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA 63,025 68,810 9.18%
4 Columbus, OH 50,370 54,493 8.19%
5 Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI 41,248 44,482 7.84%
6 Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC 51,819 55,802 7.69%
7 Oklahoma City, OK 45,993 49,441 7.50%
8 Salt Lake City, UT 57,790 62,008 7.30%
9 Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN 50,464 54,112 7.23%
10 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI 46,314 49,653 7.21%

A full map of this metric is below.

percent-change-per-capita-gdp-2010-2013

Percent change in real per capita GDP, 2010-2013.

Houston’s #1 showing is very impressive. This is a per capita value remember, so they aren’t on top just by virtue of adding lots of people. And they are in the top ten for 2013 per capita, so it’s not like they started on a low base or something.

Portland and San Jose continues their strong showing in this metric (more on these metros to come next week). Two metros in Michigan made the top ten, though some of that I’d speculate must come from the auto industry recovery, meaning it’s cyclical in nature.

I’ll throw in the total real GDP figures as well, but obviously these heavily align to population. Here are the ten biggest metro GDPs in 2013 (amounts in millions of dollars):

Row Geography 2013
1 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA 1,377,989
2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA 775,967
3 Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI 550,793
4 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX 456,177
5 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 437,085
6 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 413,627
7 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD 358,091
8 San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA 356,081
9 Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH 349,652
10 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA 288,175

And the top ten in total real GDP growth percentage, 2010-2013.

Rank Metro Area 2010 2013 Pct Change
1 Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX 379,595 456,177 20.17%
2 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 165,435 192,184 16.17%
3 Austin-Round Rock, TX 86,546 98,126 13.38%
4 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA 140,717 159,266 13.18%
5 Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC 115,229 130,318 13.09%
6 Oklahoma City, OK 57,856 65,246 12.77%
7 Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN 84,572 95,124 12.48%
8 Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 368,015 413,627 12.39%
9 Salt Lake City, UT 63,090 70,719 12.09%
10 San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX 80,101 89,463 11.69%

Richard Florida posted some thoughts on this data over at City Lab. I’m less bothered than he is by Washington, DC’s poor performance, however. Much like Detroit’s cyclical upswing, I think short term turbulence in DC from the sequester and fiscal challenges was to be expected.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs and the founder of Telestrian, a data analysis and mapping tool. He writes at The Urbanophile.