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Metro Monitor 2017 Dashboard

February 23, 2017

Suburbia Tract Housing
  • 2 min read

The Metro Monitor provides leaders across metropolitan America with a set of objective metrics to guide their efforts in shaping advanced regional economies that work for all.

It tracks the economic performance of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas along three dimensions: growth, prosperity, and inclusion. These represent the pillars of successful economic development which should encourage robust long-run growth (growth) by improving the productivity of individuals and firms in order to raise local standards of living (prosperity) for all people (inclusion). Along each dimension, the Metro Monitor tracks three indicators, measuring the rate of change during the most recent one-year, five-year, and ten-year periods. Finally, the results of this indicator analysis are compiled into composite scores, providing overall performance rankings of metropolitan areas for each category.

Read the 2017 report here or explore the data below.

Growth indicators measure change in the size of a metropolitan area economy and its level of entrepreneurial activity. Growth and entrepreneurship create new opportunities for individuals and can help a metropolitan economy become more efficient. The Metro Monitor measures growth in gross metropolitan product, number of jobs, and number of jobs at young firms. Jump to methodology↴

Prosperity captures changes in the average wealth and income produced by an economy. When a metropolitan area grows by increasing the productivity of its workers, through innovation or by upgrading workers’ skills, for example, the value of those workers’ labor rises. As the value of labor rises, so can wages. Increases in productivity and wages are what ultimately improve living standards for workers and families and the competitiveness of metropolitan economies. Jump to methodology↴

Inclusion indicators measure how the benefits of growth and prosperity in a metropolitan economy—specifically, changes in employment and income—are distributed among individuals. Inclusive growth enables more people to invest in their skills and to purchase more goods and services. Thus, inclusive growth can increase human capital and raise aggregate demand, boosting prosperity and growth. Ensuring that all people can contribute to and benefit from growth and prosperity also helps sustain widespread support for the policies on which growth and prosperity depend. Jump to methodology↴

Indicator definitions and sources

Calculating composite scores

Metropolitan areas are assigned composite ranks in each of the three categories of the index: growth, prosperity, and inclusion. A metropolitan area’s composite rank in a category is determined by the sum of its standard scores for each indicator in that category. A standard score measures how a metropolitan area’s value on a particular indicator varies from the values of all large metropolitan areas. The rank of a metropolitan area’s summed standard scores in a category is its composite rank for the category. Composite ranks for each category are provided for three periods of time: one year (2014-2015), five years (2010-2015), and 10 years (2005-2015 for growth and prosperity; 1999-2015 for inclusion due to data availability).

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