Detroit gets some love from a travel guru.

[Bham1982]

This is exactly what you said:

"If you told the average Chicagoan that DC and SF now have larger economies than Chicago, and Houston and Boston gaining fast, they would think you're joking."

No where did you mention based on CSA and not MSA. Based on MSA, Chicago is larger than DC and SF. DC's CSA includes Baltimore which is a separate economy from DC. If Chicago could just annex a separate mid sized economy like Milwaukee, it would be larger. If you said DC and Baltimore combined has a larger economy, than you would be right.

Again, you're not getting it. I'm using official Census based classifications [[CSA), you're making things up [[artificially combining Milwaukee with Chicago, two cities 100 miles apart and with no Census-based linkages, and then claiming it's the same as official Census CSAs like DC or SF).

If you want to play games and make up metropolitan areas, fine. You win that argument. I'm going by official Census-derived metropolitan areas.