The contribution of this paper is its conceptual models and related data for identifying appropriate performance measures of an area’s infrastructure and using these measures, cognizant of their shortcomings, to estimate the value of this infrastructure in positioning the area for global competition. By focusing on the exports of a metropolitan area’s industries, we identify the sources and facilitators of an area’s economic growth and development. These include the institutions of higher education for sharpening the area’s intellectual resources as inputs for producing the unique outputs of its productive resources, and the air transportation communication facilities and services for moving these outputs to their highest and most worthwhile uses.