From the latest print issue of National Review (which I highly recommend, btw) comes an interesting aside comparing the GDP of various countries with those of a number of U.S. cities.
Perhaps the most striking comparison: New York City’s economy, the largest of any individual U.S. city, is also a couple hundred billion dollars larger than the entire GDP of Russia! In fact, it is bigger than those of all but eight countries. In retrospect it’s almost hard to believe that the Cold War was ever seriously in doubt, isn’t it?
A couple of other examples: Miami and Detroit have slightly larger and smaller economies, respectively, than Iran; Washington D.C., while mostly concerned with the governance of the nation (and hence producing fewer goods and services per capita) is still about the same as Poland . . .
Baltimore ~ Venezuela
Pittsburgh > Pakistan
Milwaukee > Kuwait
It’s sometimes easy to lose perspective amid an onslaught of huge numbers until statistics like these bring into focus just how economically dominant the U.S. really is.
