Ohio’s second tier metro areas are Dayton, Toledo, and Akron.  Grand Rapids is included as it has been considered a metro area comparable to Dayton.  Note that in this case the Grand Rapids MSA does not include the old lake ports of Holland and Muskegon, which GR fanboys sometimes add to the pump up Grand Rapids’ numbes.

 

The adjusted GMP numbers in billions:

 

 

One can see that Grand Rapids and Dayton are both pretty close, and even have similar trends.  Akron,  though, was performing quite well earlier in the decade.

 

The slowdown and decline after the mid 2000s is evident in all cases, but in Akron’s this is visible as a plateau vs actual decline.

 

Next, some graphs measuring performance, not size.  Net growth or decline over the course of the decade, expressed as adjusted dollars and as a percent

 

 

 

Again, Akron’s performance stands out.

 

Another way to look at performance is via trendline.  This might better capture what was happening across the decade.  Akrons’ trend is at the steepest slope, mirroring the numbers and percentages above.  Grand Rapids’ GMP is at a slightly higher trajectory than the Dayton MSA.

 

 

Toledo is fairly flat, in comparison.

 

Per Capita GMP

 

For what it’s worth, the Per Capita numbers.  Maybe someone can explain the signifignce of per capita measure of economy.  The results here are not too suprising, except for Grand Rapids having a fairly high per capita GMP vis a vis the Ohio cities..  As in the above numbers Akron performs well, and the slowdown or declines after mid decade appear here, too.

 

 

One can see how Dayton and Grand Rapids GMPs mirror each other.

 

The performance numbers:

 

 

 

 

Once again the actual performance of the Akron GMP is impressive.  Is it really because it’s so close to Cleveland?  Perhaps one could open up the Akron numbers a bit more to see where this growth is coming from.  Maybe in a future post.

 

I don't know how much we can quantify the University of Akron's part in the growth of the Akron region, but I would have to argue that the university HAS to play some part in this.  These are great numbers for the region- hopefully we'll see growth follow in the MSA.

I don't know much about U of Akron, except that it's right in town.  There is also Kent State in the metro area, in Portage County. U of A is I though sort of like WSU in Dayton, more of a commuter college, vs KSU.  Unless there is something unusual about U of Akron that is somehow generating economic growth.

Ohio needs to goto a global economy. They need to send TONS of salesmen across seas and gain their business.

Ohio's manufacturing economy has seen two substantial changes in the last decade: first, firms which could not compete in the global market basically collapsed. Second, those which could compete flourished, in part because of investment in new technologies that greatly increased productivity, which consequently, reduced demand for workers. According to http://www.trade.gov/td/industry/otea/state_reports/ohio.html, Ohio's exports grew from US$31.7B in 2004 to $45.6B in 2008, which was only the tenth highest pace in dollar terms (since Ohio's economy is about the 8th largest among states). It seems that even increased exports are unlikely to dramatically increase industrial employment.

 

See also: blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/03/EXPORTS%5B1%5D.pdf

Ohio needs to goto a global economy. They need to send TONS of salesmen across seas and gain their business.

 

We are going to a global economy.  The nature of it is just that a few get rich and most of us lose our jobs.  Welcome to tomorrow, hope you didn't expect to retire or send your kids to college.

Interesting stuff.

 

It's downright weird how comparable Dayton is to Grand Rapids, and Akron to Toledo, with the obvious winner of all cities being Akron and loser being Toledo. This fact alone should say something in the (somewhat important) Cleveland vs. Detroit debate.

 

I always thought Grand Rapids was best off economically by far of the cities listed, with all of the new development in town and much interest in the city. Makes me think all of the "pie-in-the-sky" Dayton ideas really may come to frutition someday.....

Wow, Toledo is in much worse shape than I thought (which was already horrible). There was no growth 2003-2005 like seen in Grand Rapids, Akron, and Dayton. And those years were even BEFORE auto restructuring began (which has killed thousands of jobs in the Toledo market since then).

 

Toledo is fairly flat, in comparison.

 

And that's what is so scary. I mean if Dayton, Grand Rapids, and Akron all saw growth in gross metropolitan product and Toledo did not, that really says something about Toledo's economy (it sucks balls). Something tells me Toledo's graph probably look's pretty similar to Detroit's...

 

I'd say so. I grew up in Toledo (been living in Cincinnati for years now), and it's depressing to go back every once in a while when I visit family who still live there. Detroit is dragging Toledo down with it. I once heard that it had the highest unemployment rate among metro areas of similar size. Obviously, Detroit tops the big cities with something like 28%.

The 2008 uptick Akron MSA uptick could be from LeBron moving back into Summit County from Medina County when his new house was built...  :laugh:

^^Akron is definitely doing well- MUCH better than many would expect.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh_akron_msa.htm), the metro has an unemployment rate of 9.7% as of October, 2009, which is a bit under what the national average is of 10% for the month of November.  From employment numbers, it seems that Akron is well balanced and diversified. Some of the largest employment sectors in the Akron metro are the following:

 

15.47% of the currently employed in non-farm jobs within the Akron metro area are employed in Education and Health Services (a growing employment sector for the Akron Metro).  This is compared to Cleveland's 18.42% and growing, using the available November statistics for Cleveland from the site.  I believe that venture capital invested towards biomedical companies in the Cleveland area actually includes the Akron metro, with the amount of dollars invested crossing over the $1 Billion mark collectively over the past few years. As the venture capital dollars continue to come in, we will see growth continue in this employment sector (part of the reason why I believe Cleveland has "turned a corner").

 

Manufacturing employs 11.91% of individuals working in the Akron metro, compared to Cleveland's 11.63%.  With continued growth in other sectors, these percentages will continue to shrink in both metros.  Having the number of manufacturing jobs around 10% is great when compared to the numbers in the early 2000s (note the loss of 80,000+ jobs in the Cleveland metro during the 2001 recession, mostly in manufacturing).  Unfortunately, unemployment sways more with manufacturing than many other sectors, so having the number around 10% of all non-farm jobs is a great factor.

Akron's MSA is geographic range is pretty tiny compared to other MSAs.  Its only 2 counties and its squeezed between 3 other MSAs.  If it were possible, and I'm not sure that it isn't, I would chop off half of Medina and throw it in Akron's MSA instead of Cleveland's.  Wadsworth is a 10-15 minute drive from Akron yet its part of Cleveland's MSA.  But also add Wayne County into Akron's MSA.  As an example of how interlinked Akron is to Wayne county, Smuckers in Orrville has been using Akron as its Corporate HQ annex for the last 4 years or so as they build out their facilities in Orrville to handle hundreds of additional employees from acquisitions.  Wayne county isn't in any MSA currently.