Economy

Is Your Region Innovative, Productive, Creative, or Just Populated?

A new study gauges the relative contribution of U.S. metros to population, innovation, and economic growth.
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Growth is a mantra that cities, as well as nations and states, everywhere quest after. A growing number of economists caution that growth for growth’s sake does not necessarily equate to higher living standards or increased happiness. A blue-ribbon international commission headed by Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen has called for new, broader measures of economic performance and social progress. Plus, not all "growth" is the same. I've previously called attention to "growth without growth," the misguided notion that adding population equals economic growth.

A new report [PDF] from my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute provides a fresh take on this issue. It looks at how regions contribute to four key categories of regional economic development — population, innovation, creativity, and economic output. Basically, the study calculated a metro's share of the U.S. total for each of the four categories. The table below, from the study, charts the metros that top the list in each of the four categories. It lists the category that each metro does best in.