Aw shucks, LA could have been a contender - instead GDP is only $766 billion

Not to belabor the nonsense about L.A. somehow lacking world-class credentials, but the Commerce Department just released its annual rundown of largest metro economies and Los Angeles wound up in the number two spot, behind NY, with annual growth rate in 2012 of 3.1 percent. That's behind SF, Houston, and Dallas, but ahead of NY, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The economic picture is a lot more complicated than a few numbers (the rich-poor divide is significant), but it should dispel the long-running whine about L.A. being some sort of basket case that requires emergency infusions of in-fill development dollars.