Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 7.4
The highest relative productivity cities in the OECD
US cities
City
Population
6
(million)
Relative
produc-
tivity
Non US
OECD
cities
City
population
(million)
Relative
produc-
tivity
San Francisco
4.2
1.72
London
7.4
1.59
Washington
5.1
1.70
Paris
11.2
1.53
Boston
4.4
1.60
Dublin
1.6
1.18
Seattle
3.2
1.50
Vienna
2.2
1.27
Minneapolis
3.1
1.46
Stockholm
2.2
1.29
New York
18.7
1.45
Stuttgart
2.7
1.34
Denver
2.3
1.40
Milan
7.4
1.29
Philadelphia
5.8
1.39
Lyon
1.6
1.26
Dallas
5.7
1.38
Munich
6.1
1.30
Atlanta
4.7
1.32
Oslo
1.7
0.95
Houston
5.2
1.31
Sydney
4.2
1.07
San Diego
2.9
1.29
Brussels
3.8
1.19
Chicago
9.4
1.26
Toronto
4.7
1.08
Los Angeles
12.9
1.25
Helsinki
1.8
1.19
Detroit
4.5
1.21
Frankfurt
5.6
1.24
Sources:
Calculations based on OECD (2006 pp. 38-40); OECD (2008); World Bank
(2008b); McCann and Acs (2011).
have actually shrunk in size than the number of cities that have grown
(UN-HABITAT 2008). As such, the ∩-shaped relationship between city
per capita productivity and population scale may have actually shifted to
the left slightly, as well as changed shape, as labour out-migration from
cities specialized in declining industries gives rise to the growth of other
cities specialized in growing sectors.
7.5.2
City-regions and Connectivity
Part of the problem here is that, while estimations on the relationship
between city size and productivity within individual countries make some
sense, estimations across countries are far more complex because of the
spatial, structural and institutional heterogeneity of countries, and pooled
cross-sectional samples of cities from different countries will provide dif-
ferent overall pictures. As well as the ∩-shaped relationship between city
size and productivity, across the OECD it is also generally the case that
the higher income cities are actually outgrowing lower income cities, irre-
spective of population scale (OECD 2006). Taken together, all of these
various observations strongly suggest that other characteristics of cities
