America's Ridiculously Large Economy

Following up on the previous CD post below, the chart above (click to enlarge) shows the 20 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by 2006 GDP using BLS data available here and the countries with comparable economic output using GDP data available here from the IMF and World Bank.

Consider that the top 10 cities in the U.S., all with GDP of $224 billion or higher, would rank among the top 30 countries in the world by GDP if they were a separate country. The top 20 American cities would all rank individually in the top 50 countries of the world by economic output if they became a separate country.

Consider also that the 10 largest cities in the U.S. produce the same amount of economic output ($4,300 billion) annually as Japan, and the top 20 largest U.S. cities produce the same output ($6,000 billion) as the economies of U.K., France and Canada combined.

When you consider how ridiculously enormous the U.S. economy is, diversified across a huge number of industries in 50 states, with individual cities producing more economic output than most countries around the world, it's truly mind-boggling. In the press, America's "Dangerfield economy" is often portrayed as fragile and delicate, ready to collapse into recession at any moment, when in fact, it's ridiculously larger and more stable than most people give it credit for.