15 Biggest US Cities Ranked By GDP

Today we explore economic Behemoths as we take a look at the 15 biggest US cities ranked by GDP. This category, however, is quite fluid and cities tend to change places as years pass by. Unlike the GDP, the population doesn’t usually change that fast as seen on our list of 10 largest US cities by decade. Still, population and GDP can at times be intertwined, especially when things start heading down south. Detroit is the best example as The Motor City has lost a large portion of its citizens with the downfall of the car industry and its GDP with it. With all this in mind, end-results probably won’t surprise you as the biggest cities have more means at their disposal in creating the best results. But, let us go one step at a time.

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Our source is easily available to everyone interested in the topic. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has all the data you need in order to see which of the US cities generates most gross income over selected period of time. However, data is abundant and needs to be pinpointed – plus, you still have to do the research. For your convenience, we have done both. However, our methodology still warrants an explanation. For starters, we have used the real GDP in chained dollars. What does that mean? Two things. First and foremost, real GDP doesn’t necessarily have to mean that given city’s inhabitants are the richest. GDP per capita does that much better, and real GDP only offers the insight into biggest moneymaking cities. Secondly, chained dollar takes all the inflation and devaluation rates into account and represents the adjusted dollar’s value. In other words, one dollar would have usually bought you more a few years ago. $1 from 1990 is worth $1.86 today, for instance. In order to fully grasp the changes in respective city’s economy, we have had to adjust the values and take 2009 as the base year, as usual. Apart from using the total GDP and chained dollars, we have also generated an average GDP total for the years between 2001 and 2014 (all available years). Of course, we have also included both end-year’s totals just to show you how much the US economy has evolved over these 14 years. Finally, we have used the data for all industries and listed metropolitan areas which sometimes consist of two or more cities across more than one state. So, without further ado, let’s get underway with our list of 15 biggest US cities ranked by GDP.