GDP per capita of the European and North American metro areas

[New Brisavoine]

I posted this in the European forum, but people here will find it interesting too. Figures are from 2011, the last year for which we have European regional GDP figures.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

As requested by some, I'm adding the North American metro areas.

For the US, I'm giving the richest and poorest metro areas of more than 250,000 inhabitants, plus some large metro areas that are neither the richest nor the poorest. I'm using the new definitions of the CSAs. When there is a significant difference with the old CSA definition, I'm indicating it in parenthesis. For some metro areas, we only have the MSA figure (because the CSA is made up of just one MSA + some tiny micropolitan areas for which there are no GDP data).

For Canada, we have GDP figures only for the metro areas of Québec, courtesy of the national statistical office of Québec. For the other provinces, I'm only indicating the provincial GDP. Note that in Alberta, contrary to most other places, the GDP per capita of the two main cities, Calgary and Edmonton, is probably lower than the provincial GDP per capita, because the provincial GDP per capita is boosted by oil production which doesn't take place in those two metro areas.


GDP per capita in 2011 (in US dollars, at market exchange rates, not at purchasing power parity):
- Canton of Geneva: $118,721 (figure inflated by commuters coming from neighboring areas in France and Switzerland)
- Canton of Zurich: $104,733
- cantons of Basel-Stadt & Basel-Land + German district of Lörrach: $93,436 (figure inflated by commuters coming from neighboring areas in Switzerland and France)
- Oslo metro area: between $84,000 and $94,000 (depending on the definition of the metro area)
SWITZERLAND (entire country): $83,679 ($51,352 at PPP)
- Alberta: $79,469
- Anchorage MSA: $78,789
- Stockholm County: $78,301
- Houston MSA: $73,983
- SF Bay Area CSA: $72,613 (old definition of the CSA: $76,511)
- Munich metro area: $71,460
- Paris Region: $71,307
- Copenhagen metro area: $70,128
- Washington-Baltimore CSA: $68,954 (Washington MSA: $77,872)
- New York CSA: $68,141 (old definition of the CSA: $69,514)
- Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia CSA: $67,771 (Seattle-Tacoma MSA: $73,232)
- Hartford-West Hartford, CT CSA: $65,031
- Helsinki-Uusimaa Region: $64,385
- Brussels-Capital + Flemish & Walloon Brabant: $64,322
- Dublin metro area: $62,406
- Boston-Providence CSA: $61,805 (Boston MSA: $74,515)
- Minneapolis CSA: $61,238
- Dallas CSA: $60,919
- Rhine-Main metro area (Frankfurt-Wiesbaden-Mainz): $60,332
- Denver CSA: $59,432
- Vienna metro area: $58,836
- Antwerp arrondissement: $58,318
- San Diego MSA: $58,204
- Stuttgart metro area: $57,832
- Chicago CSA: $57,415
- Philadelphia CSA: $57,294 (old definition of the CSA: $58,397)
- Hamburg metro area: $57,036
- Greater London + 6 home counties: $54,802
- Randstad (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht): $52,537
- Milan metro area: $52,105
- Atlanta CSA: $51,902
- Los Angeles CSA: $51,834
CANADA (entire country): $51,791
- Lyon metro area: $50,738
THE NETHERLANDS (entire country): $49,968
- Ontario: $49,884
USA (entire country): $49,803
- Québec City metro area: $49,773
- Cleveland-Akron CSA: $49,692 (Cleveland MSA: $55,286)
AUSTRIA (entire country): $49,566
ÉIRE (entire country): $49,344
- British Columbia: $48,326
- Montréal metro area: $48,300
- Rhine-Ruhr metro area (Essen-Düsseldorf-Cologne): $47,914
- Edinburgh metro area: $47,913
- Nice-Monaco (Alpes-Maritimes + Principality of Monaco): $47,763 (figure heavily weighed down by the numerous retirees living in the area)
- Detroit CSA: $46,802
- Toulouse metro area: $46,729
BELGIUM (entire country): $46,539
GERMANY (entire country): $45,293
- Rome metro area: $45,210
- Phoenix MSA: $45,205
- Bristol metro area: $44,793
- Marseille metro area: $44,582
- Miami CSA: $43,319
- Bordeaux metro area: $43,251
- Florence metro area: $42,922
FRANCE (entire country): $42,812
- Turin province: $42,192
- Las Vegas CSA: $41,104
- Madrid province: $40,940
- Nova Scotia: $40,817
- Orlando-Deltona-Daytona Beach CSA: $40,674
- Tampa-St. Petersburg MSA: $39,534
- Berlin metro area: $39,046
- Bilbao province: $39,039
UK (entire country): $38,964
- Liège arrondissement: $37,892
ITALY (entire country): $37,025
- Barcelona province: $35,861
- Glasgow metro area: $35,278
- Athens region (Attica): $35,263
- West Yorkshire metro area (Leeds-Bradford): $34,463
- Manchester metro area: $34,255
- Newcastle metro area: $33,287
- Bratislava metro area: $32,404
- Birmingham metro area: ca. $32,000
- Lisbon metro area: $31,333
SPAIN (entire country): $31,173
- Prague metro area: $30,810
- Ljubljana metro area: $30,480
- Liverpool metro area: $29,783
- Valencia province: $28,827
- Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL MSA: $28,424
- Warsaw metro area: $27,914
- South Yorkshire metro area (Sheffield-Doncaster): $27,593
GREECE (entire country): $26,104
- Laredo, TX MSA: $25,849
- Palermo province: $25,549
SLOVENIA (entire country): $24,520
- Tallinn-Harju County: $24,119
- Budapest metro area: $22,867
- Thessaloniki regional unit: $22,612
PORTUGAL (entire country): $22,570
- Naples metro area: $22,150
- Zagreb metro area: $21,537
- Ocala, FL MSA: $20,822
CZECH REPUBLIC (entire country): $20,627
- Poznan metro area: $20,446
- Vilnius County: $20,237
- Porto metro area: $19,634
- Brownsville-Harlingen, TX MSA: $19,482
- McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX MSA: $19,232
- Riga metro area: $17,815
SLOVAKIA (entire country): $17,790
ESTONIA (entire country): $17,038
- Wroclaw metro area: $16,638
- Katowice-Bytom-Gliwice metro area: $15,653
- Istanbul province: $15,618
- Tricity (Gdansk) metro area: $14,976
- Krakow metro area: $14,942
CROATIA (entire country): $14,453
LITHUANIA (entire country): $14,235
- Kaunas County: $13,988
HUNGARY (entire country): $13,868
LATVIA (entire country): $13,663
POLAND (entire country): $13,400
TURKEY (entire country): $10,413

[10023]

London looks very low, but I see you're including the entirety of the Home Counties. That's not really metro London. East and West Sussex aren't even adjacent to Greater London.

Bucks and Sussex are almost entirely rural, with population densities of about 1,000 ppsm. Parts of Essex and Kent are suburban, but these are mostly rural as well. Surrey is mostly suburban, and Berks is more populated (almost 1,800 ppsm), but most of that is Reading, Basingstoke, etc). Metro London really only extends just outside the M25 to places like Slough, Maidenhead and Windsor (partly because of Heathrow), down to Woking, east to Gravesend, etc.

[New Brisavoine]

Looking at the figures, we can see a striking contrast between the US and Canada. In the US, the economy is concentrated in the largest metro areas, which have GDPs per capita higher than the national average. In Canada, on the other hand, the big metro areas have GDPs per capita lower than the national average, and the country draws its wealth in a large measure from resource-rich areas located away from the main metro areas: tar sands of Alberta, offshore oil of Newfoundland, where GDP per capita was US$64,482 in 2011, minerals in Yukon (US$67,825), the Northwest Territories (US$109,605), and Nunavut (US$60,169).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 10023

London looks very low, but I see you're including the entirety of the Home Counties. That's not really metro London. Some of them aren't even adjacent to Greater London.

There exist no data at a sub-county level.

As for borders, all home counties included here are adjacent to Greater London (Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey, and Kent).

[10023]

Well at least you're not including Sussex. Still, it's an area of almost 20 million people, almost 50% higher than the most expansive definition of metro London.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...n_Union_by_GDP

This gives a GDP for greater London of €732bn and a population of 11.9m, or ~€61,500 per capita. That's $78,700... quite a bit higher than above.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 10023

Well at least you're not including Sussex. Still, it's an area of almost 20 million people, almost 50% higher than the most expansive definition of metro London.

No, it's an area of 15 million people, not 20 million.

Originally Posted by 10023

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...n_Union_by_GDP
This gives a GDP for greater London of €732bn and a population of 11.9m, or ~€61,500 per capita. That's $78,700... quite a bit higher than above.

That list is based on figures from different sources. Not comparable.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Looking at the figures, we can see a striking contrast between the US and Canada. In the US, the economy is concentrated in the largest metro areas, which have GDPs per capita higher than the national average.

Not true. The highest GDPs per capita in the U.S. are in small towns involved in energy industry, same as in Canada.

Also, GDP per capita is not income or wealth per capita. Houston, for example, has sky-high GDP per capita, but household wealth and household incomes in Houston are very average for the U.S. Median household in even many Midwest metros has higher income than median household in Houston.

The thread list should be read as a ranking of per capita economic output, not per capita wealth.

[kool maudit]

wow, copenhagen is a lot richer* than montreal (and about 10x as rich as pristina).

* more economically productive would be more accurate, i guess. well, i am doing my bit and making a little more here, but the $30 hamburgers are still a bit grating.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Not true. The highest GDPs per capita in the U.S. are in small towns involved in energy industry, same as in Canada.

If they are not metro areas, they don't have GDP per capita published. In the list I gave the metro areas with the highest GDP per capita in the US. Only one very small metro area has a higher GDP per capita, Midland, Texas, but I didn't include it since it has less than 250,000 inhabitants. I also haven't included small Swiss cities like Zug which have higher GDP per capita than even Geneva or Zurich.

In Canada, all the oil/mineral-rich provinces have higher GDP per capita than the big Canadian metro areas: Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Newfoundland. In the US, on the other hand, only Alaska has a higher GDP per capita than the US metro area with the highest GDP per capita. No other state, not even North Dakota, has a GDP per capita higher than the top US metro areas (SF, Washington, Boston, etc).

Productive wealth in the US clearly resides in the big metro areas, and is due to humans, whereas in Canada productive wealth resides much more in the oil and mineral areas outside of the big metro areas. At least that's what the figures show!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Productive wealth in the US clearly resides in the big metro areas, and is due to humans, whereas in Canada productive wealth resides much more in the oil and mineral areas outside of the big metro areas. At least that's what the figures show!

The numbers show that Midland, TX is the most productive metro in the U.S., and the next most productive metros are also smaller ones. There are no big metros at the top, same as Canada.

Technically this is a Census issue because these "smaller" metros are really thought of as part of bigger metros (so Bridgeport and Trenton as part of NYC metro and San Jose as part of Bay Area metro) but, going by the strict Census MSA definitions, the biggest metros are not the most productive.

And Houston is one of the most productive of the biggest city metros.

But I just wanted to parse out the distinction that economically productive does not mean "rich" in the conventional definition. Houston, for example, is more economically productive than Boston. But Boston is a richer city than Houston. The median household and mean household income in Boston is significantly higher than that of Houston.

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by 10023

Well at least you're not including Sussex. Still, it's an area of almost 20 million people, almost 50% higher than the most expansive definition of metro London.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...n_Union_by_GDP

This gives a GDP for greater London of €732bn and a population of 11.9m, or ~€61,500 per capita. That's $78,700... quite a bit higher than above.

The most expansive definition for metro London (and the ONLY official one!) is the GLA defined metropolitan region which housed 18 million people a decade ago and over 20 million nowadays. It is comparable to a US Census defined CSA.

A London metro comparable to a MSA would have 14-16 million.

[10023]

Originally Posted by SHiRO

The most expansive definition for metro London (and the ONLY official one!) is the GLA defined metropolitan region which housed 18 million people a decade ago and over 20 million nowadays. It is comparable to a US Census defined CSA.

A London metro comparable to a MSA would have 14-16 million.

Source? Or are you making this up.

See link:
http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defau...es-note-17.pdf

These are each official definitions used by the GLA, and the most expansive definition of metropolitan London, which extends well beyond the "travel to work" area and covers neighboring satellite cities from which few people actually commute into London itself, has a population of 13 million. The population data is off course a bit out of date, but it's hard to imagine it's by more than 5-10%.


Edit:

I think I've found where you're getting 20 million, and it's nothing like a US CSA. It's like extending New York's metropolitan area to Wilmington, DE or Providence, RI.

http://www.london.gov.uk/thelondonpl...ositioning.jsp

This is a plan for regional cooperation (transport, etc). They've extended it to Cambridge and Peterborough! Please, look at a map and tell me that those are metro London.

[MolsonExport]

Montreal metro is $26 behind British Columbia. Half of BC is in and around Vancouver....the most expensive city by far in Canada. Montreal is still great for bohemian living in a metro of 4 million.

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by 10023

Source? Or are you making this up.

Sigh...yep this again, it was to be expected...

No I'm not making anything up, this is common knowledge among actual professionals in the field.

See link:
http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/defau...es-note-17.pdf

These are each official definitions used by the GLA, and the most expansive definition of metropolitan London, which extends well beyond the "travel to work" area and covers neighboring satellite cities from which few people actually commute into London itself, has a population of 13 million. The population data is off course a bit out of date, but it's hard to imagine it's by more than 5-10%.

Oh now it's 13 million? I thought your claim was 11.9 million ("most expansive")? Meanwhile your own link from 2007 gives 14 million as a possible comparison to a MSA.
And you know full well (or at least you ought to) that Greater London alone has grown by over a million since 2007. In other words my claim of 14-16 million is SPOT ON and your claim of 11.9 million is ridiculous and refuted by your own link.

Edit:

I think I've found where you're getting 20 million, and it's nothing like a US CSA. It's like extending New York's metropolitan area to Wilmington, DE or Providence, RI.

http://www.london.gov.uk/thelondonpl...ositioning.jsp

This is a plan for regional cooperation (transport, etc). They've extended it to Cambridge and Peterborough! Please, look at a map and tell me that those are metro London.

This is perfectly comparable to a CSA. Again, more knowledgable people than you have determined this over a decade ago on forums that at the time were populated by actual professionals in the field.
Peterborough and Cambridge are outliers but definately part of a combined metropolitan area centered on London. Dozens of trains an hour depart from there to London each morning. The area surrounding these satellite cities however is not part of this calculated combined metro area.

Cambridge and Peterborough are 75 km and 110 km from London. It's less than an hour by train for both! And even if you exclude these cities (combined population 310,000), that still leaves 19.7 million.
(And since you probably don't know how a CSA works, there doesn't even need to be any commuting from these places to London itself, just enough cross commuting between an established London primary metro area and the metro areas of these cities. The threshold for this is ridiculously low).

Wilmington and Providence are 175 km and 250 km (!) from New York City (Manhattan) so please stop being ridiculous!

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

In Canada, all the oil/mineral-rich provinces have higher GDP per capita than the big Canadian metro areas: Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Newfoundland. In the US, on the other hand, only Alaska has a higher GDP per capita than the US metro area with the highest GDP per capita. No other state, not even North Dakota, has a GDP per capita higher than the top US metro areas (SF, Washington, Boston, etc).

Productive wealth in the US clearly resides in the big metro areas, and is due to humans, whereas in Canada productive wealth resides much more in the oil and mineral areas outside of the big metro areas. At least that's what the figures show!

Strictly speaking what you're saying is true, but keep in mind that those resource rich provinces/territories have a fraction of Canada's population. Only Alberta is significantly populated of the ones you listed. The majority if Canada's wealth is generated in the big cities, just like other countries.

[Crawford]

London does not have 20 million people. That's absurd by any definition.

Probably around 12-15 million people using the most expansive U.S. CSA definition.

[10023]

ShiRo,

The 11.9m figure was the number given by the source I found that also offered GDP data (Eurostat). It was close enough to the 13m definition for the per capita GDP to be relevant. That's it.

The most common definition of metro London, and the one used by the Greater London Authority (see my link), has a population of 13 million people. I have already acknowledged that the population of this region has likely increased by 5-10% (650k to 1.3m people) since that data was collected, so the population of metro London is probably pushing 14 million these days.

If you include "cross-commuting" between towns from which people don't actually commute to London itself, then practically the whole of England from Brighton to Leeds is a single metropolitan area. It's a densely populated country with a good transportation network. That doesn't make these places a single metropolitan entity, and including most of Hertfordshire, let alone areas outside of the Home Counties, is ludicrous. You'd have to include Oxford, Swindon, Bournemouth, Northampton. These areas commute to cities like Birmingham and Bristol as well, so why don't we just toss those into London as well.

American metro area definitions are more expansive because American metros ARE bigger. People commute longer distances. When I tell people that I used to drive 3-3.5 hours each way every weekend between Manhattan and Montauk, they look at me like I'm crazy. Here it's 4 hours by train to Edinburgh, but no one (at least not a statistically relevant number of people) commutes to Birmingham, let alone the North of England or Scotland. It's partly cultural and it's partly due to sparse population between urban centers in the US (away from the Northeast US at least).

You have always claimed some sort of superior knowledge of all things European in arguments against American forumers, but as a half-Brit and London resident, I am telling you that you are full of shit. Also, say more things like "you probably don't know how a CSA works" and I'm just going to block you, and you can have fun arguing with yourself.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by SHiRO

Cambridge and Peterborough are 75 km and 110 km from London. It's less than an hour by train for both!

Lille is also less than an hour by train from Paris.

As often said, CSA is a concept that works in North America, where densities are low, and wouldn't work in Europe, especially in the dense parts of Europe, like England. So it makes sense to use CSA for the US metro areas (it makes perfect sense for SF and LA for instance, since their MSAs don't even include all of their urban areas), but it makes no sense to try to carve "CSA" territories in Europe.

[10023]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Lille is also less than an hour by train from Paris.

As often said, CSA is a concept that works in North America, where densities are low, and wouldn't work in Europe, especially in the dense parts of Europe, like England. So it makes sense to use CSA for the US metro areas (it makes perfect sense for SF and LA for instance, since their MSAs don't even include all of their urban areas), but it makes no sense to try to carve "CSA" territories in Europe.

A much more succinct reply than my own.

I would add that, because densities outside of major metropolitan areas are so low in most of North America (with the only real exception being the "BosWash" megalopolis along I-95), the more expansive CSA definition actually makes little difference. It does screw up density metrics, but doesn't add much to population.

For instance, the Chicago MSA has 9.6 million people and the CSA has 9.9 million people. The CSA adds a whole lot of farmland in the collar counties but not a lot of people. This is a far cry from a definition of a "London CSA" that encompasses 20 million people vs. the traditional 13 million pop. metro area.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Strictly speaking what you're saying is true, but keep in mind that those resource rich provinces/territories have a fraction of Canada's population.

A fraction of the population, but a significant part of its economy.

Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Newfoundland produce 20% of Canada's economy. Add in Saskatchewan (also a very high GDP per capita), and you've got 23.5% of Canada's economy.

Without these 6 provinces/territories, the GDP per capita of Canada in 2011 wouldn't have been US$51,791, but it would have been US$47,148, which is only slightly higher than the GDP per capita of Detroit CSA (US$46,802).