Add up the states he cited...
But, 53.5 Million people vs 39 million in CA.
Philly is in a state that overlaps the region, but is not in the region. Hence, adding up the state GDPs overestimates the GDP of the region by at least the GDP of Philly.
[1] technically, I believe it is actually called the GSP (Gross State Product) in this case.
Approaching 40 million, that population is divided, generally, as: half in the Los Angeles - San Diego region, half the remainder in the San Francisco - San Jose region, half the remainder (5 million) between Sacramento and Stockton, and the remaining 5 million throughout the rest of the state, mostly still within the southern Central Valley (particularly Bakersfield).
See: counties by population, showing 23 counties of fewer than 100k population. Over half the state's population is in 5-6 counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Santa Clara.
https://www.california-demographics.com/counties_by_populati...
On the other hand it's kinda cheating to put the major cities at the corners.
Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati all sound better than Detroit. A lot better.
Anybody have any info on this? Seems suspect to me. If you add large metro areas in that area, it looks to be around 25 million people. I'm sure there is a lot of manufacturing but this has to be BS right? I grew up in the middle of that diamond, and now live in the Bay Area, and I just cannot make sense of this.