Recently the US Bureau of Economic Analysis released GDP numbers for metro areas for 2011. Below is a chart for Ohio’s 3-Cs of GDP from 2001 to 2011.

All the metros saw GDP growth during this period, and all saw dips during the recession before growing again the past few years.

Total Growth (in Millions) 2001-2011
Cincinnati: $24,795
Columbus: $22,850
Cleveland: $21,518

GDP % Growth 2001-2011
Columbus: 32.1%
Cincinnati: 31.9%
Cleveland: 25.2%

So this shows that the Columbus metro has had the fastest growth the past 10 years in its GDP, albeit only a bit faster than Cincinnati.

The graph above shows the metro GDP per capita. Columbus was clearly ahead the first half of the last decade, but has fallen since. There are two reasons for this: Continuously growing population and the recession. A growing population and stagnant GDP during the recession meant that the GDP was diluted between more people. Neither of the other two faced the strong population growth during the recession. I expect the trends will reverse again over the next few years, however.