With a metro area GDP of around $44 billion New Orleans lags the US average per capita GDP by about 20%. Tourism, the port, petrochemical, medical, construction and finance dominate the local business landscape. Manufacturing and technology have had relatively little impact outside of a couple of government sponsored projects including the Michoud NASA assembly plant and the UNO Information Technology Center which is still dominated by a massive military payroll processing project.

Lack of general manufacturing may stem from the mercantile past of the city when the economy depended entirely on the export of cotton and sugar. This business was so good, it may have made it harder for other industry to get started. Only when oil was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century did a new industry gain a foothold.

Recently the city has had trouble attracting new manufacturing, commercial and even retail development because of the problems in the city including taxation, labor force, education, crime, government interference etc. Just getting a Wal-Mart built in a blighted area took nearly a year of intense debate. (And, yes, that was the same Wal-Mart we saw being looted on CNN after the storm). City planning and zoning especially in any of the historical areas is a nightmare. It's much easier to build in the surrounding parishes.

Take a drive down South Claiborne Avenue. Just past the water works you'll cross Monticello Avenue at a slight rise in the road with levees to your right and left.  Here Claiborne crosses the Jefferson Parish line and becomes Jefferson Highway. The scene changes from older residential dwellings into a vibrant commercial landscape with warehouses, railroads, and commerce. Why the sharp division you might ask? Well if you were in business would you voluntarily pay more taxes deal with a more intrusive government and force your customers to pay more taxes just to be a few hundred feet to the east?

Tourism has always been a mixed blessing for the city. On the one hand it brings in money. This income depends on New Orleans maintaining a distinctive European and antebellum feel (it means pre war, what war might you ask?). Historical preservation is almost a mania that interferes with modernization and growth. Tourism also depends on a large quantity of relatively low paying service jobs, supporting a large population of working poor.

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Business is mixed for the 75% of New Orleans that has found its way back. Construction and recovery related business is great, fueled by wads of federal money. Tourism continues to be slow although the city has proven its ability to host a 20,000 person convention. Pro sports are set to resuming in 2006. The refineries and pipelines are generally back in operation however more headquarters jobs have moved out of the city.

The loss of Tidewater to Houston is particularly troubling. Originally a New Orleans company they make no bones about leaving to provide a better quality of life for their employees and to operate in a more businesslike environment. Adding this loss to the recent move of Freeport McMoran to Phoenix as the result of a merger we see New Orleans struggling to attract and hold big business.

Government business may be sliding as well when the Michoud Assembly facility shuts down production of the space shuttle external fuel tanks. The final launch of the shuttle is scheduled in 2010. NASA has not announced production plans for follow on projects.

Another big industrial loss was announced in July 2010. The Avondale shipyard in Jefferson Parish will be closing in 2013 and its operations will relocate to Pascagoula, MS.  Avondale had been building Navy and Coast Guard vessels and defense contracting has slowed to the point that this shipyard became unnecessary to owner Northrup Grumman. Five thousand workers at Avondale will lose their jobs.

GDP in the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area

With 1.3 million people in the MSA you would expect the USA average GDP to produce $52 billion per year in the metro area. ($12 trillion / 300 million people = $40,000 per person)

One source tells me the New Orleans GDP is $44 billion per year based on Louisiana adjusted per capita GDP of $33,000 per year

Houston $308 billion GDP
Atlanta $225 billion GDP

Why is it so hard to find out what the NO MSA GDP is?