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Corvallis and Portland metro area rank #1 and #2 for highest annnualized productivity growth over the last decade

Rick Turoczy on October 2, 2013

If there’s one thing that Portland—and perhaps Oregon as whole—has proven, it’s that we’re in it for the long haul. And our plans? Well, sometimes they take a while to pay off. A long while. Like city planning which originated 40 years ago that’s just beginning to come to fruition.

And now, Richard Florida has just hit upon something else the region has done well over the past decade: productivity. Where Corvallis ranks first, and the Portland metro area comes in second.

What sort of productivity you ask? It’s an assessment of gross domestic product per capita for the region.

Productivity assessment

The second map charts average annual productivity growth across U.S. metros, as measured by growth in real GDP per capita… Taken together, these top ten leaders in productivity growth averaged population growth of 0.88 percent per year, beneath the metro average of around 1 percent per year. These metros were able to substantially increase their productivity without substantially growing their populations. Boulder, for example, which has been lauded as a center for innovation and start-up companies, was able to substantially increase its productivity while seeing its population decline.

For a region that often gets shouldered with the “Portland lazy” moniker, this a welcome assessment of how productive we really are. And how startups and knowledge workers are positively impacting the productivity of our region.

For more, read the annualized productivity assessment in Atlantic Cities.

Published by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

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  2. Bill October 16, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    2011 Oregon Metropolitan Productivity Ratio Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis (GDP output per person for metros divided by the gross domestic product (GDP) per person for the nation as a whole)

    Bend, OR: 0.694
    Corvallis, OR: 1.389
    Eugene-Springfield: 0.634
    Portland, OR: 1.294
    Salem, OR: 0.571

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