Philly Makes List of Richest U.S. Metro Regions

Photo credit: Andreas Metz via Flickr

With its healthy ‘eds and meds,’ powerhouse pharmaceutical industry and fast-growing real estate sector, the Philadelphia metro region ranked No. 19 on a new Bloomberg Business list of the richest regions in the United States. Philly had a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $59,240. (GMP measures the total output of goods and services within a particular metro region.)

Perhaps the biggest surprise on the list was New York, which came in a paltry 8th place, losing out to emerging tech hubs around the country — although a Connecticut suburb still ranked very high.

Here are the top five regions:

1. San Jose, Calif.: $105,482
2. Bridgeport, Conn.: $94,394
3. San Francisco: $80,634
4. Seattle: $75,874
5. Boston: $74,746

“The 2014 rankings highlight a surge in tech centers since the recession, with San Jose now producing about $11,000 more per person than No. 2 Bridgeport. Until 2011, the Connecticut suburb for New York bankers held the top spot,” Bloomberg reports. “It’s no surprise that these high-output cities also have some of the densest concentrations of educated workers, reflecting the soaring returns to schooling in today’s job market.”

Here’s Bloomberg’s methodology:

Bloomberg ranked the 100 biggest metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) in the U.S. according to their gross metropolitan product per resident from 2008 to 2014, calculated with data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau. Data for 2014 were advance statistics and subject to future revision.

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