The combined metropolitan area is the fourth largest of New England (behind the Boston, Providence, and Hartford areas). The area includes Connecticut's two largest cities: Bridgeport and Stamford. As of 2022 the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury area has been split into two different Connecticut regions (the state equivalent to counties), the Western Connecticut region (including Stamford, Norwalk and Danbury), and Metropolitan Connecticut (MetroCOG), consisting of the five towns of Greater Bridgeport. The region is home to one of the largest concentration of corporate headquarters in the nation.
Definitions
Greater Bridgeport Region
The smallest official definition of Greater Bridgeport is the area under the authority of the Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning Agency, which oversees transportation, land use and economic development planning for its member towns. The region consists of the six towns indicated in the introduction.[6]
A slightly smaller definition known as the Southwest Service Delivery Area consists of the Greater Bridgeport Region, the Lower Naugatuck Valley (including Oxford), the Gold Coast, and the town of Milford (20 towns).[11]
Metropolitan statistical area
The MSA associated with Bridgeport is the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk–Danbury MSA and consists of the entirety of Fairfield County with 23 towns.[12] While statistically similar in terms of population and extent to the NECTA definition, the MSA includes the city of Danbury and its suburbs, and excludes the Valley region.
Many towns in the area were once home to heavy industry, and Bridgeport was the state's chief manufacturing city by output and value of goods. Despite a corporate exodus due to deindustrialization, (including the General Electric factory and the Columbia Pictures Processing Plant) nearby Stratford continues to be home to Sikorsky Aircraft and Shelton home to Hubbell Incorporated.
Other major well known companies in the area not listed previously include:
Commuter rail is served by the Metro-North railroad of the MTA, which connects the Connecticut suburbs to New York City, with the New Haven line passing through every station along the coast. The New Canaan Line and the Waterbury Line connect northern Fairfield County and the Naugatuck Valley to New York City. The Bridgeport and Stamford stations are also served by Shore Line East and Amtrak rail service.
The metropolitan area is served by multiple different bus operators for public transit. The Greater Bridgeport Transit Authority operates from downtown near the train station and serves Bridgeport and the surrounding towns of Trumbull, Stratford, Milford, Westport, Fairfield, Shelton and Monroe, which works in conjunction with the Norwalk and Milford Transit. GBT Costal Link buses connect in Norwalk to the Norwalk Transit District, which takes riders are far north as Danbury and west as Greenwich. CT Transit operates a division in Stamford, which includes Greenwich, Darian, New Canaan, and Port Chester, NY.
The region is currently served mainly by Bradley and New York City airports, with the regional airports nearby including Westchester County Airport (in White Plains, NY) and Tweed Airport (in New Haven), both more than a half hour away.[17]
Talks about commercial services returning to Sikorsky Memorial Airport have been going on for years. Built in the 1920s on Avon Field, located in Stratford and previously owned by the City of Bridgeport (until bought by the Connecticut Airport Authority), the airport ceased commercial flights in 1999, along with the demolition of the passenger terminal.[18]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Greater_Bridgeport, and is written by contributors.
Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.