[2] In its most conservative form, the area consists of the City of Bridgeport and five surrounding towns—Easton, Fairfield, Monroe, Stratford, and Trumbull.

[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.

The Greater Bridgeport area is home to multiple Fortune 500 companies, including Emcor, Xerox, and Booking Holdings in Norwalk, Charter Communications, Synchrony Financial, United Rentals, and Frontier Communications in Stamford, XPO, Inc. in Greenwich, and the New England regional base of M&T Bank (a company based in Buffalo, New York) in Bridgeport.

[13][14] The coastline portion of the metropolitan area, which is Fairfield County, is known as the Gold Coast, is the densest concentration of wealth in the US, being home to hedge funds, some of the wealthiest towns in the country, commuter Wall Street executives and wealthy WASP families.

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.

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.

CT Transit operates a division in Stamford, which includes Greenwich, Darian, New Canaan, and Port Chester, NY.