The center has shifted! Shanghai ranked world's number 1 metro economy

By Shanghaiist on Jan 24, 2012

big shanghai.jpg By Benjamin Cost

Shanghai has topped the Brookings Institution's list of the world's 200 largest metropolitan areas who collectively comprise almost half the world's economic activity.

Its number one ranking is based on a 5.8% augmentation in the city's workforce and an astounding 9.8% economic increase in just one year, from 2010-2011. Following closely behind Shanghai are Saudi Arabia's financial hubs, Riyadh and Jeddah.

Nearly scraping the bottom of the rankings at number 196 is Sacramento (the California state capital was the US's worst-performer), which saw its employment and gross domestic product slip 1% last year and has been deemed "in full recession." In general, the rather lop-sided list illustrates the continuing transfer of economic control from West to East.

The LA Times reports:

In Brookings' list, released Wednesday, 90% of the world's fastest-growing economies were outside North America and Western Europe. And 95% of the weakest-performing metro areas were in the long-dominant economic powers of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan
.

And China is leading the Easternization of the global economy, with eight cities in the list's top 20 best-performing economies - Beijing and Chongqing ranking among the most notable after Shanghai.

Fortunately for the US, demand for US products has slightly boosted the formerly floundering economies of several of its manufacturing centers - namely San Jose (California's top-ranking metro which includes the suburbs of Silicon Valley), Detroit, and Buffalo, which now occupy the list's No. 61, 72, and 68 spots respectively.

But the overall trend points to a major financial power shift from the Western to Eastern superpowers. And despite potential future hiccups, China's economy appears to be riding high, further amplifying your reasons to Go East, Young Man.


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Comments [rss]

  • Bruce_Tutty
    It's a dump, like all cities...polluted, over-crowded, money hungry, and unhealthy
  • I'm interested in relocating to Atlanta from the D.C. area to pursue a career in music. Are there any people from the ATL that can tell me what life is like down there now?
  • Any statistics based on Chinese official data is a balloon just shy of a needle.
  • BBC_Redux
    You are equally naive to deny that China is growing.
  • Oh, yes. Growing deserts, growing mountains and hills without any vegetation, growing dry river and creek beds, growing pollution, and growing population died of cancer.

    The communist government has left a long trail of unspeakable evils in this nation of a long and sad history.
  • BBC_Redux
    Sad but true, but that is just mimicking the developing path of other countries. But China is growing and I have an apartment in Shanghai. I love Shanghai!!! Maybe I love to live in a nation of unspeakable evils. LOL!!! BTW, I use to hold US citizenship, but I prefer to live in Shanghai than NYC.
  • Zhabei
    Okay so if we say the shanghai metro is all 16 cities of of the Yangtzee river delta (长江三角经济区)  the total economy is only 878.6 billion.  I am confused as to how that is larger than the 1.28 trillion dollars of the New York Metro area or the 1.7 trillion dollars of the Tokyo metropolitan area.  They cite a growth rate of 9.8%, however, when you factor in the official inflation rate of 4.1% (it is probably higher) it brings you to 5.7%, when you factor in currency inflation of 3.9% you get a real growth rate of 1.8%  By contract New York's real growth rate is 4.7%, which is substantially higher.
  • BBC_Redux
    I don't think the ranking is based on total size of the the economy because not only NYC, but Tokyo Metro area is larger in terms of total GDP. I think they take in factors like economic growth etc. Shanghai's GDP per capita is 15000 USD in 2011, at current rates of growth, it will surpass Hong Kong's GDP per capita in around 15 to 20 years. Shanghai's economy is also more balanced than Hong Kong's. Already some HKG manufacturers are moving their operations back to HKG as skilled wages in Guangdong is about 75 percent of Hong Kong, for a technician, for example, and automation can do away a lot of the unskilled labor. There is inflation in NYC too.http://www.bls.gov/ro2/cpinynj.htm

    And I also spend considerable time in Stuttgart, and I totally concur that Stuttgart deserves its ranking as the top European city (note Stuttgart is not even tops in Germany in Economic size, it is dwarfed by Berlin, Hamburg, Munich etc. But Stuttgart has full employment, a balanced economy, amidst the dire economic outlook in much of Europe.
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