Large US Cities = global growth engine (Pittsburgh: ranking, company, population)

[BrianTH]

Courtesy of Chris Briem, an interesting study on how important U.S. cities are to global economic growth:

Urban America: US cities in the global economy | McKinsey Global Institute | Urbanization | McKinsey & Company

Key snippet:

In a world of rising urbanization, the degree of economic vigor that the economy of the United States derives from its cities is unmatched by any other region of the globe. Large US cities, defined here as those with 150,000 or more inhabitants, generated almost 85 percent of the country’s GDP in 2010, compared with 78 percent for large cities in China and just under 65 percent for those in Western Europe during the same period. In the next 15 years, the 259 large US cities are expected to generate more than 10 percent of global GDP growth—a share bigger than that of all such cities in other developed countries combined.

If you dig into the details, from 1978-2010, Pittsburgh has lost in terms of ranking by total GDP, but also is one of the more rapid gainers in terms of GDP per capita. This has happened in part because it has lost population overall, but population share has gone to higher-productivity people.

This is a story we have often discussed in one way or another, but an interesting question is what will happen going forward if the population losses have in fact stopped or reversed. Will we continue to also gain in GDP per capita? If so, it could get pretty interesting around here.

[airwave09]

This was an interesting read, but it really didn't give that much new information that people don't already know. At least anything outside of the GDP ratios of cities on each developed region of the world.

[BrianTH]

To me the most interesting part--and this definitely reflects a Pittsburgh perspective--was the fact it was really the "middleweight" cities that distinguished the U.S. from Western Europe.