Mapping the Latest GDP Data for the Nation's Metropolitan Areas

Continuing Planetizen's survey of data dumps by the federal government is a post devoted to the gross domestic product (economic clout, in other words) of the country's metropolitan areas.

1 minute read

September 28, 2017, 10:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


A post on HowMuch maps recently released gross domestic product data from the Department of Commerce to present an illustration of the relative economic might of the metropolitan areas of the United States.

The map, "clearly shows a huge gap in terms of economic output," according to the post. "The disparity is so large that the top 20 metro areas collectively generate more output than all of the other 362 geographic areas put together ($7.872T vs $6.988T). If the top 20 cities formed their own country, they’d have the third largest economy in the world."

Another post by Jeff Desjardins provides additional analysis of the same GDP data and map, including a nod to the biggest risers and fallers: "The biggest increase was a tie between Lake Charles, LA and Bend-Redmond, OR, each which had GDP climb by 8.1% from the last year. The city that saw the biggest drop was Odessa, TX, which fell -13.3%." Also, "real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 267 out of 382 metropolitan areas in 2016."

Additional news of federal data reports for 2016 released in September include Census data on poverty and income as well as commuting.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 in HowMuch

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