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Hartford, CT / New Haven, CT

Demographics:

DMA Rank
Population 2+
30
2,326,100
TV Households
Cable Penetration
945,250
82.9%
African American HH Rank
Hispanic HH Rank
44
29
Asian HH Rank
Ad Penetration
28
14.4%

 

Stations:

WUVN
WCCT
WEDH
WHPX
WHCT
WUTH
WRDM
WEDN
WCTX
 
 
 
WEDY
 

 

Market Profile:

Key Industry/Employment:

Metropolitan Hartford's strong economy is based on a diverse business and industrial community. The area ranks number one in the world in gross domestic product per capita and number two in the world in labor productivity. Long a powerful insurance and financial center, it also boasts an extensive list of major high-tech manufacturing firms producing such complex products as aircraft engines, nuclear reactors, space suits, and missile components. The city is also a major data processing and telecommunications center. Other industries thriving in the area include health care and retail. With employees working in the state capitol building, the legislature, libraries, and the Supreme Court, government is another major economic sector. Hartford's physical location is a prime asset, as the city is located within 100 miles of both New York and Boston and offers access to 100 million consumers within an 8-hour drive. Additionally, Hartford is gaining a reputation as one of the nation's most wired cities, which has been an important factor in the attraction of information-oriented businesses.

Long known as the Insurance Capital of the World, MetroHartford is home to seven major insurance firms: Aetna Inc., Travelers Property Casualty Corp., MassMutual, The Hartford Financial Services Group, CIGNA, The Phoenix Companies, and The United Health Care Company.

The area's manufacturing sector includes many Fortune 500 corporations and large multinational organizations. Among the best known are the Barnes Group and United Technologies Corporation, its divisions Hamilton Sundstrand and Pratt & Whitney, along with its subsidiary Otis Elevator. Henkel Loctite Corporation has its world headquarters in MetroHartford. Stanley tools and hardware are produced in the region, as are the famed Colt firearms. Still, the region's backbone are the small- to mid-size businesses, which enjoy an excellent outlook for success in the early years of the century. Recently ranked number 17 nationally in the top 40 markets for business expansion, Hartford provides a fertile environment for small-business growth.

Items and goods produced: jet engines and aerospace products; fiber optics; chemicals; biomedical pharmaceutical products

Local Economy

Hartford is the historic international center of the insurance industry, with companies such as Travelers, Aetna, The Hartford, The Phoenix Companies, UnitedHealthcare and Hartford Steam Boiler based in the city, and companies such as Lincoln National Corporation having major operations in the city. The city is also home to the corporate headquarters of U.S. Fire Arms and United Technologies.

From the 19th century until the mid-20th century, Hartford was a major manufacturing city. During the Industrial Revolution into the mid-20th century, the Connecticut River Valley cities produced many major precision manufacturing innovations. Among these was Hartford's pioneer bicycle (and later) automobile maker Pope. As in nearly all former Northern manufacturing cities, many factories have been closed, relocated, or reduced operations.

A number of companies that are regularly listed in the Fortune 100 are headquartered in Hartford including United Technologies Corporation, Aetna and the Hartford Financial Services Group. Travelers Insurance has its largest national employment center and historical headquarters in the city. CIGNA insurance is headquartered in the region with a presence in Hartford and its suburb Bloomfield. United Health Insurance has a significant presence in the city.

At the same time, many companies have moved to or expanded in the central business district and surrounding neighborhoods. Aetna announced mid-decade that by 2010 it would move nearly 3,500 employees from its Middletown, Connecticut offices to its corporate headquarters in the Asylum Hill section of the city. Travelers recently expanded its operations at several downtown locations. In 2008, Sovereign Bank consolidated two bank branches as well as its regional headquarters in a nineteenth-century palazzo on Asylum Street. In 2009, Northeast Utilities, a Fortune 500 company and New England's largest energy utility, announced it would establish its corporate headquarters downtown. In the same year, work began at the southeastern corner of Constitution Plaza on the AI Technology Center, the future headquarters of the eponymous engineering firm. AI's chief executive helped finance the building, the first commercially leasable structure in Connecticut to be certified at the platinum level under the US Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program. Other recent entrants into the downtown market include GlobeOp Financial Services and specialty insurance broker S.H. Smith. CareCentrix, a patient home healthcare management company, is moving into downtown from East Hartford, where it will add over 200 jobs within the next few years.

Hartford is a center for medical care, research, and education. Within Hartford itself the city includes Hartford Hospital, The Institute of Living, Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and Saint Francis Hospital & Medical Center (which merged in 1990 with Mount Sinai Hospital).

Following the housing market decline, Hartford renters are finding cheap and declining rent averages in relation to national trends. “Declining rents are affecting not only Hartford but also other markets in Connecticut and across the country as employers remain restrained about hiring. Connecticut's unemployment now stands at 9.1 percent, below the nation's 9.7 percent.”

According to a 2011 study from Brookings Institute Global Metro Monitor, Hartford has the highest GDP per capita of the cities listed, with $75,086.

Unique Characteristics

  • Hartford Hospital and St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center are two of the nation's top 100 hospitals.
  • New Haven is home of the many prominent universities like Yale University, University of Connecticut, known for world class bio-science research, and Quinnipiac, repected for its research and law school programs.
  • New Haven was rated as "best housing recover bet," by CNN Money despite the effects of the recession of 2007-2009 on the national economy.