CITY/STATE: 5 Recent Data Points That Are Good News For Providence

CITY/STATE: 5 Recent Data Points That Are Good News For Providence

The economic data we hear of about Providence or Rhode Island is generally of the gloomy variety. But a few weeks back I shared one piece of good news related to our incomes. This week I’d like to highlight a few other statistics you

probably didn’t know about it, but show Providence looking pretty good. Keep in mind that for all of these, when I say “Providence” I don’t mean the city of Providence, but the Providence metropolitan area (which includes all of Rhode Island plus a small portion of Massachusetts). The ranking are out of the 51 metro areas in the US with more than one million people. (Providence has about 1.6 million people in its metro area).

Exports

The federal government just released data for 2012 on exports by metro area. Providence was #10 (again, out of 51) for its percent change in exports from the start of data collection in 2005 until 2012. Providence has $5.8 billion in exports every year. This is $3,641 in export value for every single person. Providence is only #33 in exports per capita, but as you can see has been growing rapidly.

Educational Attainment

In the modern knowledge economy in which things like technology and innovation play a leading role in driving growth, attracting or developing talent is critical. The most common measure of this is college degree attainment, or the number of adults aged 25 or older with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

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Between 2000 and 2011 (the most recent data), Providence ranked #6 in percentage point increase in college degree attainment. It grew by 5.73 percentage points, rising from 23.7% to 29.4%. The top knowledge hubs are much higher than this, but again Providence has shown strong growth. This data can be fairly volatile year to year thanks to the survey margin of error, but if we are going to beat ourselves up when bad numbers come in, we might well celebrate when good ones do.

There are now 319,746 people with at least a bachelor’s degree in the region.

Broadband Access

Access to broadband Internet is another key factor driving the technology economy of cities. Providence actually ranks #2 in America (behind only Portland, OR) in the percentage of its homes that have access to ultra-broadband Internet at 1Gbps speeds or higher. That’s not to say those homes all subscribe to that speed, but it’s available. Over twenty-nine percent of homes have access to 1G service. This is far, far higher than average. #4 ranked Phoenix is only at 9.1%, for example. Providence has 4.7% of all the homes in the entire United States with access to that speed.

To show you how fast 1G is, I have Verizon FiOS Internet at home with a downlink speed of 15Mbps. 1G service is equivalent to 1000Mbps. While this level of service might be overkill for a person surfing the net, it could be much more useful for businesses and such.

Per Capita Income

Between 2001 and 2011 (the most recent data), Providence ranked #6 in growth in per capita income. Again, Providence is not among the nation’s elite metros in income per capita, but it has been growth rapidly. Per capita income in 2011 was $43,192.

Gross Domestic Product Per Capita

Similarly, Providence has been doing fairly well in its growth in per capita GDP. Gross Domestic Product is a measure of the economic output of a region. Providence ranked #14 in per capita GDP growth between 2001 and 2011 (the maximum data range available). Its growth was 9.2% on a real (inflation adjusted) basis. The current per capita GDP is $37,081.

So while Providence continues to struggle economically, especially in creating jobs, there are some pieces of brighter news. I don’t want to suggest that everything is fine by any means, but in some areas where Providence may have lagged, it has been growing at a fairly rapid clip. The challenge is to keep this up while finding ways to add jobs, repair government balance sheets, and renew the state’s infrastructure.

 

Aaron M. Renn an opinion-leading urban affairs analyst, entrepreneur, speaker, and writer on a mission to help America’s cities thrive in the 21st century. In his blog, The Urbanophile, he has created America’s premier destination for serious, in depth, non-partisan, and non-dogmatic analysis and discussion of the issues facing America’s cities and regions in the 21st century. Renn’s writings have also appeared in publications such as Forbes, the New York Times, and City Journal. Renn is also the founder and CEO of Telestrian, a data analysis platform that provides powerful data mining and visualization capabilities previously only available in very expensive, difficult to use tools at a fraction of the cost and with far superior ease of use.