Even though growth in the Chicago Tri-State metro-region picked up just before the crisis, exceeding the average for all US metro regions in 2006-07, the subsequent shock of the crisis hit Chicago very hard indeed. The Chicago Tri-State metro-region’s GDP represented 3.4% of the US economy in 2008 - just above its share of the national population (3.1%) - reflecting the fact that productivity and GDP per capita tend, all other things being equal, to be higher in urban areas than elsewhere.12 Over 2001-2008, however, Chicago’s contribution to aggregate US GDP growth amounted to less than 1.5% (Figure 1.8). For the same period, the Tri-State metro-region ranked lllh among the 29 US metro regions in terms of its contribution to aggregate US growth, although it ranks third in terms of both population and size of the economy.