Pittsburgh's Economic Ranking in the World (Indiana, Middletown: home, purchasing, live)

[MathmanMathman]

The WSJ did an interesting ranking of US cities' Economies if measured against entire countries.

U.S. Cities With Bigger Economies Than Entire Countries - Real Time Economics - WSJ

Pittsburgh was #81. Just below Vietnam and above Charlotte. Not sure if it is the city proper or the MSA/CSA. Ought to be the latter but the article says US cities, so I'm unsure.

70 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA $175.0
71 Qatar $173.5
72 Ukraine $165.2
73 New Zealand $161.6
74 Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO $161.5
75 Kuwait $156.1
76 Baltimore-Towson, MD $148.0
77 Hungary $139.6
78 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA $139.4
79 St. Louis, MO-IL $133.1
80 Vietnam $123.8
81 Pittsburgh, PA $118.8
82 Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC $117.8
83 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL $115.2
84 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA $111.3
85 Kansas City, MO-KS $108.8
86 Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH $106.6
87 Bangladesh $106.2
88 Indianapolis-Carmel, IN $105.3
89 Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL $105.0
90 Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN $101.6
91 Morocco $99.5

And Cleveland is neck-and-neck with Bangladesh.

[acenturi]

It's MSA, look at how Philly #37 and other large metros are listed.

[szug-bot]

so the sum of all the gross metro products of every american city should = the GDP of the US? or were those 'gross metro products' some kind of per capita thing?

notice how we are still light years ahead in GDP than the #2...suck it, china!

[BrianTH]

In other words, a lot of other countries are pretty darn poor overall.

And in fact both the world and American cities will be better off when American cities don't rank so high against entire countries.

[Bettafish]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

In other words, a lot of other countries are pretty darn poor overall.

And in fact both the world and American cities will be better off when American cities don't rank so high against entire countries.

Maybe it is not computed in purchasing power parity.
I know one could live on $3 a day in China (though the quality sucks). In the US it is simply impossible, in anyway. In India, maybe $1 would work.

[BrianTH]

By the way, for people who don't know: Bangladesh is the 8th-most populated country in the world--more than Russia--with over 150 million people. That the Pittsburgh MSA, with approximately 1/65th the population of Bangladesh, has higher dollar-denominated economic production is an interesting fact for us, but a tragedy for them. Even with a PPP adjustment (which I'm pretty sure these don't have), they are still going to score as way, way poorer per capita than us.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

In other words, a lot of other countries are pretty darn poor overall.

And in fact both the world and American cities will be better off when American cities don't rank so high against entire countries.

What exactly are you trying to summarize with "clearer" alternative wording?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

What exactly are you trying to summarize with "clearer" alternative wording?

Exactly what I said. The reason we can rank ahead of countries like Bangladesh which are many, many times our population is that those countries overall are extremely poor by our standards.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Exactly what I said. The reason we can rank ahead of countries like Bangladesh which are many, many times our population is that those countries overall are extremely poor by our standards.

And yet they still insist on reproducing way beyond their replacement rate

[Bettafish]

Chengdu, the capital of my home province has the same GDP as Pittsburgh in 2011.
But the population is like 5 times bigger, and the downtown area is much bigger than either Pittsburgh or Philly.