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Comment by brotherjerky | Hacker News Reader

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brotherjerky·

Does that mean you should breakout London from the rest of the UK? Frankfurt from Germany?

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Maybe, since NY state has 3x the area, 2.5x the population as Switzerland.

It seems crazy to lump Mississippi and North Dakota in the same basket as NYC

By the same criteria we shouldn't talk about Russia but about Moscow or Sankt Petersburg or not about China but about Beijing or Shanghai.

Every countries has regions which are less well off. But most comparisons lump everything up. Otherwise madness ensues trying to create "proper" economic divisions...

Sure, why not? It's not like these rankings are useful in any way anyway.

That's almost like saying: "since we can't have perfect comparisons, let's have no comparisons at all".

What value is derived from the comparisons?

Simple, the mother of progress, increased expectations! :)

There's a reason North Korea locks its citizens in and doesn't allow them access to any information about the outside world.

Interestedly, North Dakota per capita Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 66,507 while New York (not NYC) had 63,929 while Mississippi was dead last (for US States) at 31,894.

NYC itself has got to have a pretty high value given DC is 160,563.

I think its a bit problematic for a very different reason, North Dakota is mostly exporting raw materials (crops and oil) where NYC is services. I'm not sure people really get how the system fits together. To me, the friction points (borders, regulations, shipping, etc.) are the dividers. Not sure how one weighs how much those add to get regions.

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