I explored the metropolitan statistical area of NY-NJ-PA and how industries are concentrated in this area, and how their earnings and employment levels vary across a subset of occupations using data provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. MSA is defined by the US Census Bureau as: each metropolitan statistical area must have at least one urban area of 50,000 or more inhabitants. The concentration of occupations is found using the location quotient, which is calculated by dividing the percentage of employment in a specific industry within a region by the percentage of employment in that same industry nationwide. This shows how concentrated an industry is in a certain area in comparison to the national average. An LQ equal to 1 means that the region and the nation are equally specialized in that industry; anything above 1 means that the area is more specialized in the region than in the nation, and less than 1 means the area is less specialized in that region than in the nation. I also analyzed how salaries in these occupations compare to the average and highest income. I also observed the level of employment for particular occupations in comparison to the national number. I could not include chief executives in the data because their estimates for salary and occupation concentrations were not released. The dashboard visualization represents this data with a horizontal bar chart, showing occupation concentration, and two gauges, one for salary and one for employment.

The horizontal bar chart illustrates how all of the listed occupations are concentrated in this MSA using the location quotient. About half of the industries in this MSA are either at or above the LQ of 1, meaning that those at 1 are average and those above 1 are highly concentrated in comparison to the national average. The industry that I am going to focus on is that of fashion designers. The LQ of fashion designers in this region is 6.3, meaning they are extremely concentrated in comparison to the national average. The number of fashion designers in this MSA is 7,910, and the national number of fashion designers is 15,820. This region has the highest concentration of fashion designers, followed by an MSA in California with an LQ of 2.1, then MSAs in Texas, Oregon, and Florida, which all have LQs below 1. The drastic drop from 6.3 to 2.1 shows how intensely concentrated fashion designers are in this specific MSA. This can be explained by New York City’s history as a production center and its infrastructure, which supports this industry. It is also home to top fashion schools like Parsons, and it has a vibrant culture of creativity and design, including its world-renowned fashion weeks.

The dashboard includes two gauges, one that compares the average annual salary to the average income and highest income, and the second compares the level of employment for a particular occupation in the MSA to the number nationwide. The salary gauge displays where an occupation's salary falls relative to both the metro area average, which is set as a reference line, and the highest-paying job in the dataset. The employment gauge shows how many people are employed in a certain occupation within the MSA, as well as how many total people are employed within that occupation nationwide. In class, we discussed why there are certain areas that many firms cluster in, forming agglomeration economies and generating relatively low production costs. These cost advantages generate large concentrations of employment, which we see happening in this MSA. The large number of fashion firms in this area allows them to share intermediate input, tap a common labor pool, improve skills matching, and share knowledge. This can explain again why fashion designers are so prevalent in this region.

The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, And Failing The Middle Class– And What We Can Do About It by Richard Florida touches on reasons why these occupation concentrations for certain industries tend to be so high in particular regions, Winner-Take-All Urbanism. There is a small group of “superstar cities” that account for a disproportionate share of talent, economic activity, innovation, and wealth (Florida 2017). The superstar phenomenon explains why, once something becomes popular, others are more likely to demand the same thing, due to a function of network externalities associated with popularity. New York has a long history with fashion design and has been a long-established place that has fostered success. It's considered the fashion capital of the world with a legacy of innovation and trendsetting. This tends to attract many aspiring and established designers and therefore continues to build up the industry in this particular place.

A few of the other occupations that are highly concentrated in this MSA are Transit and Railroad Police and Fabric and Apparel Patternmakers, which are more concentrated in this MSA than statewide. Transit police are needed due to the amount of public transit within this MSA, subway, trains, taxis, and the number of people who are traveling on these transit systems, who need to be safe. Fabric and apparel pattern makers are needed for the thriving fashion industry that is present in New York, and they can make their items cheaper due to the agglomeration of fashion firms in this area. The BLS has projections for industries they think are going to grow the most in the US, and in comparison to my MSA, the only similar occupations were sales and related, business and financial operations, and protective services. The MSA has different projections than what the BLS has for the US as a whole due to its unique qualities and thriving New York City, which differs in its industries and occupation concentrations from the rest of the US.

Florida, R. (2017). Winner-Take-All Urbanism, New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, And Failing The Middle Class– And What We Can Do About It (pp. 13-33). Basic Books.

United States Department of Labor. (2024, April 3). New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA - May 2023 OEWS Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area occupational employment and wage estimates. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_35620.htm#(8)

US Census Bureau. (2023, July 25). Delineating Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/metro-micro/about.html#:~:text=Delineating%20Metropolitan%20and%20Micropolitan%20Statistical%20Areas&text=Each%20metropolitan%20statistical%20area%20must,but%20less%20than%2050%2C000%20population.