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GDP stats are not for the city proper ....

Rather the greater metropolitan area. The population of said area in Philadelphia is close to 5.5 million, I believe the GTA is about this size as well, so its not overly surprising they are close based on this alone.

I think I recall reading the GTA's GDP is around 320 or 350, putting it ahead ... trying to find source.

I would imagine the 905 actually contributes a big part of this (the Canadian headquarters of many US based operations are heavily concentrated in the 905, namely the airport area ... no suprise) , not sure about Philadelphia's suburbs.

Anyway, point is, they're likely the same which makes sense given the similar populations.
 
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taal said:
GDP stats are not for the city proper ....

Rather the greater metropolitan area. The population of said area in Philadelphia is close to 5.5 million, I believe the GTA is about this size as well, so its not overly surprising they are close based on this alone.

I think I recall reading the GTA's GDP is around 320 or 350, putting it ahead ... trying to find source.

I would imagine the 905 actually contributes a big part of this (the Canadian headquarters of many US based operations are heavily concentrated in the 905, namely the airport area ... no suprise) , not sure about Philadelphia's suburbs.

Anyway, point is, they're likely the same which makes sense given the similar populations.
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It's kind of a pointless comparison as US Metropolitan Areas typically much larger areas than Canadian ones. If they were both measured using the same standards I don't think Philadelphia would have a larger GDP.
 
syn said:
It's kind of a pointless comparison as US Metropolitan Areas typically much larger areas than Canadian ones. If they were both measured using the same standards I don't think Philadelphia would have a larger GDP.
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Yep, but I think the CMA for Philadelphia is pretty comparable to the GTA .... actually, the CMA for Philadelphia is 6 million but I think the comparable area in Toronto (stat was not size was) is just under 6 ... so given that, I bet ours is still slightly larger even though we're talking about less people.
 
Apparently, the nearest comparison to the way the US calculates metropolitan areas would not be the GTA, which does not, for example, include Hamilton or the Oshawa area. It would be the Golden Horseshoe, which is a much larger population. Judged that way, the Toronto conurbation follows Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in population. I apologize for not giving a link at the present moment.

Edit: from the Wikipedia article on the Golden Horseshoe, FWIW: note the correction to my statement re rank in North America.....

"The region is projected to grow to 11.5 million people by 2031.[4] The definition of the Golden Horseshoe as an agglomerated urban area, that is combining Census Metropolitan Areas is similar to how population counts are tabulated for Combined statistical area, which are used in the USA to combine more than one metropolitan area, defined as an MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), into a larger overall urbanized area. These metropolitan areas are intrinsically linked through inter-dependence of services, trade, transportation corridors, close proximity and other factors, in this context they can also be viewed as a single region. In terms of population, the Greater Horseshoe is the 6th most populous greater urbanized area in North America, just behind the Baltimore-DC-Northern Virginia CSA, as of the 2006 census."

The present population is a little over 8 Million, btw.
 
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taal said:
Yep, but I think the CMA for Philadelphia is pretty comparable to the GTA .... actually, the CMA for Philadelphia is 6 million but I think the comparable area in Toronto (stat was not size was) is just under 6 ... so given that, I bet ours is still slightly larger even though we're talking about less people.
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Every data sheet I've ever come across (and I've seen many) lists Philadelphia as have a significantly larger GDP than Toronto and to have GDP per capita at least 10% higher than Toronto. Toronto is more comparable to Atlanta in this regard.
 
As of the 2011 census the GTA was at 6.1 million and the Greater Golden Horseshoe was at 8.76 million. The Washington/Baltimore CSA was at 8,718,083 as of the 2010 U.S. census.
 
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isaidso said:
Every data sheet I've ever come across (and I've seen many) lists Philadelphia as have a significantly larger GDP than Toronto and to have GDP per capita at least 10% higher than Toronto. Toronto is more comparable to Atlanta in this regard.
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You know what, you are correct:

Gross Domestic Product (in current $bil.) $152 (Toronto) $296 (CMA)
Population (5,838,838).

http://www.toronto.ca/business_publications/pdf/2012-july.pdf
 
taal said:
You know what, you are correct:

Gross Domestic Product (in current $bil.) $152 (Toronto) $296 (CMA)
Population (5,838,838).

http://www.toronto.ca/business_publications/pdf/2012-july.pdf
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I don't want to belabour this, but the paper you link indicates a difference between Toronto, namely the city, the GTA and the CMA, the Census Metropolitan Area. The figures you quote are for either Toronto the city or the CMA. But even the CMA is incomplete as a comparator to an American city. The CMA does not include greater Oshawa, including Whitby and Clarington, on the east and Burlington on the west. That, I venture to say, is an absurd limitation.

Nor does it include greater Hamilton, which is clearly part of the same conurbation, as anyone driving the QEW will know. Many people commute regularly, either by GO trains and buses or driving from the areas. I can understand why Hamilton would, on an emotional basis, not want to be included as a part of the political unit of Toronto, but it is just as much part of the conurbation as Fort Worth is of Greater Dallas, to give but one example. (Fort Worth people are just as scornful of Dallas as Hamiltonians are of Toronto, but they are still counted as the same metropolis.)

My understanding is that Americans would count all those areas, and probably the equivalents of Kitchener, Cambridge, Guelph and Barrie, as part of a metropolitan area. I may be wrong about that last point, but until we find out what is included in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, all our comparisons are uncertain.

What can be compared is tall buildings. A quick consultation with the tables on skyscraperpage.com indicates that Philadelphia is far behind Toronto in that respect and even farther behind with respect to present construction. It is hard to imagine that those numbers of tall buildings and present levels of construction is not part of GDP.
 
taal said:
Yep, but I think the CMA for Philadelphia is pretty comparable to the GTA .... actually, the CMA for Philadelphia is 6 million but I think the comparable area in Toronto (stat was not size was) is just under 6 ... so given that, I bet ours is still slightly larger even though we're talking about less people.
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It's less the population and more the area of land used to come to such conclusions. If both covered similar areas Toronto would likely be ahead.

I'm not sure if you know this, but Philadelphia is counted in NYCs CMA. The areas compared in US and Canadian cities are so different GDP comparisons may not make much sense.
 
syn said:
It's less the population and more the area of land used to come to such conclusions. If both covered similar areas Toronto would likely be ahead.

I'm not sure if you know this, but Philadelphia is counted in NYCs CMA. The areas compared in US and Canadian cities are so different GDP comparisons may not make much sense.
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Yep the office space reports for the CMA include parts of New Jersey state. Not sure about New York, but for the CMA that could be the case.


Anyway I think we are all on the same page and agree that most likely the GDP is comparable and just based on the office / industrial space in the region verse population, the GDP of the GTA is probably larger.
 
The Philadelphia metro area is ~6 mil in 13,256 km^2 vs the GTA at ~6 mil in 7,124 km^2.

So to count the same population for Philly you need to almost double the land area, which seems like a significant discrepancy to me.
 
2011 census population:
Toronto CMA: 5,583,064
GTA: 6,054,191 (Toronto+the 4 regions around it)

The 2011 CMA population estimate (taking into account the people who didn't fill out the census): 5,838,800.
 
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