The nation’s 363 major metropolitan areas accounted for 90 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2005, according to experimental data released last Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The total U.S. current-dollar GDP in 2005 was $12.4 trillion. The five largest metro areas – including New York, which with a GDP of $1.1 trillion, was second only to the $1.6 trillion produced by the entire state of California – accounted for 23 percent of the total U.S. GDP, while the smallest 75 metro areas accounted for less than 2 percent.
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Total GDP growth in the nation’s metropolitan regions slowed slightly to 3.0 percent in 2005 from 3.8 percent in 2004, after adjustment for inflation.
Real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew in 327 of the 363 metro areas in 2005, and shrank in 36, with the strongest growth occurring along the southern and western coasts, especially in Florida. Most of that growth came in the private services-producing sector.
The fastest growth was in Palm Coast, Fla., where a real estate boom helped drive up the GDP by 19.4 percent. The largest decline was in the New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner region of Louisiana, where real GDP was down 5.4 percent in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Providence-New Bedford-Fall River metropolitan area was in the lowest quintile nationwide in 2005, with a total current-dollar GDP of $59.41 billion, up $1.89 billion or 3.3 percent from 2004. Total output from private service-producing industries rose $1.51 billion or 3.9 percent to $42.08 billion, while output from goods-producing industries was stable, edging up 0.6 percent to $10.17 billion.
Increases were seen in construction activity, rising to $3.09 billion in 2005 from the previous year’s $2.80 billion; health care and social assistance, rising to $5.77 billion from $5.42 billion; wholesale trade, rising to $3,53 billion from 2004’s $3.35 billion; retail trade, to $4.29 billion from $ 4.12 billion; the information sector, rising to $2.24 billion from the previous year’s $ 2.13 billion; professional and technical services, rising to $2.88 billion from $2.71 billion; real estate, rising to $7.54 billion from $6.92 billion; education, edging up to $1.09 billion from 2004’s $1.001 billion; accommodation and food services, rising to $1.65 billion from $1.59 billion; government, rising to $7.16 from the previous $6.91 billion; and arts, entertainment and recreation, rising to $458 million from $438 million the year before.
Declining were manufacturing activity, to $6.97 billion in 2005 from $7.20 billion in 2004; and financial services, to $5.85 billion from the previous $6.14 billion. •
Additional information from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis report “Prototype Estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Metropolitan Area, 2001-2005” is available at www.bea.gov/regional.
