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Philly 50: Globally, Phila. no world-beater

The trouble with describing economic vitality using a country's gross domestic product is that such a broad figure may not reflect how hot or cold the economy is in the town where you live.

The trouble with describing economic vitality using a country's gross domestic product is that such a broad figure may not reflect how hot or cold the economy is in the town where you live.

So, although the Bureau of Economic Analysis tells us the nation's GDP was growing at an annual rate of 2.7 percent in the third quarter, what does that mean for Philadelphia? Was its metropolitan GDP keeping pace?

Thanks to new research by the Brookings Institution on the world's 300 largest metropolitan economies, we know better where Philadelphia stands: near the back of the pack since the recession.

Specifically, the region is 240th worldwide in terms of economic performance rankings for 2011-12, according to the Washington think tank. The region's ranking had slipped from 221st in the period from 2007 to 2011. Even the good old days weren't so good. Philadelphia was 228th from among that pool of 300 metro areas between 1993 and 2007.

Brookings created its Global MetroMonitor because it views the economies of large metro areas as the building blocks of national economies. The 300 included in the report released Friday account for just 19 percent of the world's population, but 48 percent of global GDP.

"It's more important to look below the national levels and understand where are the sources of growth," said Emilia Istrate, a Brookings associate fellow.

The rankings emerge from two primary measures: employment growth and GDP per capita growth. The first is self-evident: The Philadelphia region had a 0.5 percent increase in employment between 2011 and 2012, according to Brookings.

The second statistic takes a metro area's nominal GDP, divides it by population, and compares that figure against historical data. It's considered a proxy for the average standard of living.

Brookings lists the GDP of the 11-county Philadelphia region as $324.2 billion and its population at 6.02 million, producing a GDP per capita of $53,847 for 2012. Unfortunately, for this area, the percentage change from last year was slightly less than zero, putting Philadelphia in "partial recession" territory on Brookings' gauge of performance.

Brookings found most metro areas in the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions either felt no recession in the last five years or had recovered to prerecession employment and GDP per capita levels.

Just three of 76 U.S. metro areas had accomplished that, and I doubt many people would identify Dallas, Knoxville, Tenn., and Pittsburgh. That's right, Pittsburgh, with a GDP of $123.8 billion but a smaller population, ranks ahead of Philadelphia, at No. 175.

Certainly, Philadelphia has its own pockets of growth. Just not enough of them to keep up with our global neighbors.