"The metro areas at the bottom of the rankings are overwhelmingly affected by the euro zone crisis," said Emilia Istrate, a senior research analyst with Brookings. "This cities are facing national and international crises." Richmond and Sacramento are the only American cities in the bottom ten. "These state capitals are still in decline, not because of international crises, but because of local circumstances," Istrate said. "Government cuts and real estate over-investment from the better years are dragging down growth."

The most important lesson from this survey is a lesson you already know. The fastest-growing cities and countries are almost always in the developing world. As poorer countries join the vibrant global economy and gain access to consumers and investors with considerable means, there is more low-hanging fruit for them to build on a smaller base of wealth. A city like Hangzhou, China, can triple its GDP in eight years. In fact, it did. If a city like San Jose (CA) tripled its GDP in eight years, the median wage would be nearly $200,000.



Izmir, Turkey, and Santiago, Chile, two of the fastest growing cities in the world, are also among the 20 poorest cities in Brookings' survey. In the full list of the richest and poorest metropolitan economies, only Houston finished in the top 20 among both the richest and the fastest-growing metros. That's a remarkable accomplishment for the Texas energy hub, but it's also an indication that "fastest-growing" and "richest" are barely overlapping Venn diagrams.

When you line up the world's biggest metros areas from richest to poorest, what you've got is a world with plenty of room for catch-up. There is a precipitous drop-off from cities like Tokyo and New York to mid-level metro economies like Stockholm, and a long tail that reaches down to Cairo and New Haven.







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