I know this is sort of an odd question, but Iowa produces corn, Idaho produces potato's, West Virginia produces coal, etc. Yea, I'm oversimplifying, but it seems to me that NYC is just masturbatory commerce? And nothing of tangible use is exported. It's sort of a financial center that consumes. Fashion? Is that a tangible product?
Financial Services... it's not tangible, but the service sector is the biggest sector in the US... Also why bother making a comparison between Iowa (state), Idaho (state) and NYC (city)
The tangible export that New York ranks #1 in the country for is non-industrial Diamonds, and virtually all of that is handled by the diamond district in NYC. After that, their biggest exports are luxury items such artwork in the form of paintings and drawings, followed by jewelry, non-monetary gold, and sculptures. These all may sound like unnecessary daily items, but throughout history these were the very things that were valued as most important when lands were conquered through war. And this "loot" provided conquerors with the with the wealth required to form even larger armies and build symbols of power like castles and palaces. If you ever want to read up on the history of all this, I highly recommend this book:
imo, the key value and importance of NYC would be her state as the largest commercial centre for the whole USA, of which the states produce collectively the largest GDP on earth. Just like many other commercial centres for individual countries in our human history. The merchants living in the commercial centre easily control the property/land rights as well as trading contracts of farming produces. Farmers can be guaranteed for the price and value of their upcoming output, sometimes with a down payment and contract from the merchants, promising to buy their produce. Therefore, the farmers can reduce their financial risk, especially when encountering unexpected bad weather just before collection/shipment. The merchants often also gather intelligence/information, nationally and internationally, about the products produced by farmers. Such as (inter)national supply (including inventory and shipments) and demand. In order that not all farmers would plant the same products for a same year, according to merchants' contracts. From a positive view, I think there is a kind of cooperation and join venture partnership between them. Can't just measure/ evaluate the contributions merely on physical activities. imo
NYC produces excellent garbage material and they are having trouble to put it somewhere. http://citylimits.org/2015/05/18/ne...ounting-challenges-of-cost-carbon-and-equity/ NYC does not produce diamonds, it is produced in produced in Africa. They might sell it in NYC, but it is not produced there...
Of course, that would include anything like diamonds or industrial diamonds. Both domestically or internationally. A better measure (than GDP), I guess, would be the (gross) added-value by the whole NYC, comparing any other cities/states. A contractor like farmer would generate very limited added-value since the farmer has to pay for patent license fees (GM seeds), interest on borrowing finance to pay equipment/hired-labour, rental cost of farming land (that could be owned by a NYer), depreciation of equipment/infrastructure (including storage warehouse, transportation), operating costs (diesel/petrol, fertilizer, various chemicals, holiday/sick leave, etc.), etc.
imo, the key value and importance of NYC would be her state as the largest commercial centre for the whole USA, of which the states produce collectively the largest GDP on earth. Per latest gov data per state California has the largest GDP in the nation by a wide margin. Of course California is much larger. Nov 2016 New data from the World Bank show that California’s economy was equivalent to the sixth largest in the world. The World Bank’s annual rankings of countries’ gross domestic products, released on Friday, confirm an analysis published last month by the California Department of Finance. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last month that California’s GDP was $2.5 trillion in 2015, up 4.1 percent from a year earlier. California saw more economic growth than the United States as a whole, which was up 2.4 percent. But California’s rise in the global rankings comes largely at the expense of Brazil, which is struggling economically, and France, which was burdened by a weaker currency. Only five countries produced more last year than California: the U.S., China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_F0p