Printable Version A strategic and diverse area

Wealthy and densely populated, U.S. East Coast boasts many assets. It is the country’s leading strategic region, with several cities playing major national and international roles.

The East Coast is regarded as the wealthiest region in the U.S. Of the 100 richest counties (in terms of income per capita), 41 are located there.
It is also very densely populated:

• around 55 million inhabitants (2006 estimates), equal to 18% of the U.S population on only 3% of its territory, or 0.8% of the world’s total population.
• five of the world’s leading cities (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington).

It is also strategic from a political point of view, with the White House, Congress and the UN headquarters all located there. The region also hosts a high proportion of the country’s future elite, with six of the eight Ivy League universities (including New York’s Columbia, Pennsylvania University in Philadelphia, Harvard in Boston and Yale in New Haven) plus MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Another asset is the transportation network (road, rail and air) linking the various cities. The Acela Express Line, a high speed railroad, crosses the whole region, as well as Interstate 95 (I-95), a 3,000-kilometre (1,927 miles) highway running from Miami to northern Maine through 15 states and the main BosWash cities.

Boston: innovation and rapid expansion
With 600,000 inhabitants, Boston is the largest city in Massachusetts, and New England’s economic centre. Traditional businesses such as port services and textiles have been replaced by high-tech industries (R&D, IT, biotechnology, etc.). It is the second most important centre for technology in the U.S., after California’s Silicon Valley. More than 1,000 software and IT companies have set up their research operations there, and many foreign biotech labs are also located there.

Other dynamic sectors include finance (more than 150,000 people work for banks and insurance companies), health (with world-renowned medical centres), education (MIT and Harvard are centres of excellence in the field of research). Amazingly, half of American Nobel prize winners graduated from universities in the Boston area!

With 15 million tons of merchandise a year, Boston harbour is far behind New York’s (73 million tons). In 2007, its international airport served 28,102,455 passengers. It ranks 19th in the nation in passenger volume and 16th in flight movements based on Airports Council International survey of top 50 airports.

New York City: world’s number one finance hub
The Big Apple is the most dynamic city in the United States. It is also the largest, with an area of 1,214 square kilometres, and 8.2 million inhabitants (25 million for the NY metropolitan area, the most extensive in the country). Its GDP ranks second in the world behind Tokyo. Above all, New York City is the world’s leading finance hub (alongside London) and a key decision centre, with the headquarters of many international organizations located there. Consequently the city has one of the highest concentrations of economic and political power on the planet, with the number of company headquarters more than doubling in the 1990s.

The main economic activities include retail (300,000 employees), tourism (300,000 employees) and finance and insurance (350,000 employees and 15% of overall production in value). It hosts more than 200 international banks, five of the first ten U.S. insurance companies and six of the top ten investment banks. New York City is a key area for high-tech and research: 11 world-renowned research centres, 72 medical centres, more than 100 universities and the headquarters of six of the world’s top pharmaceutical groups.

Its three airports make it the busiest area for airline traffic, with more than 100 million passengers each year. There are 12 daily flights to Hong Kong and 5 to Beijing, one of the top U.S. business partners.

Philadelphia: heavy industry and high technology
Located between New York and Washington D.C., in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is the sixth  largest city in the country (350 square kilometres, three times the area of Paris), with 1.4 million inhabitants (and 6.3 million in the greater metropolitan area).
Philadelphia has more industry than the rest of the region, with 8% of employees working in the industrial sector: metallurgy, textiles, office equipment, communications and IT. Many refineries and petrochemical companies cluster around the port. However, the most dynamic sectors are now the media, telecommunications, banking, healthcare (hospitals and biotechnology), nanotechnology and transportation (automotive, rail and airlines). The city remains an important decision-making centre as well as being a major U.S. financial hub, with the Philadelphia Stock exchange (the oldest in the country) and two airports.

Washington D.C.: a decision-making centre with no skyscrapers
The federal capital of the United States covers an area of 177 square kilometres, with only 570,000 inhabitants. Unlike all other major U.S. cities, Washington D.C. does not have a skyscraper district, since a 1899 law forbids constructing any new buildings higher than the Capitol building. Among other notable features, the African-American community is in a majority here (57% of the population, against 13% nationwide).

Washington’s economy has long been dependent (up to 50%) on government activities. But the city has gradually diversified, especially in the areas of defence, IT and healthcare. Increasingly, companies set up there to be closer to political decision-makers and to engage in lobbying. The city has three airports.

Sources:
United States Census Bureau: www.census.gov
Bureau of economic analysis (BEA) www.bea.gov
Fedstats - www.fedstats.gov/
Bureau of transportation statistics: www.bts.gov
www.cityofboston.gov
www.dc.gov
www.nyc.gov
www.phila.gov