Now for Metro Areas (which are harder to define)

The ten largest MSAs in 1960 (SMSA for everything except Chicago and New York, which are CMSAs) with current rank in parentheses.

1. New York (1)
2. Chicago (3)
3. Los Angeles (within a whisker of Chicago) (2)
4. Philadelphia (5)
5. Detroit (11)
6. San Francisco (13)
7. Boston (10)
8. Pittsburgh (!!)  (22)
9. St. Louis (18)
10. Washington (8)

San Francisco is just San Francisco-Oakland--if one added San Jose it would be in the same position in 1960 and further up the ranks now.  I forgot that Pittsburgh was once a top ten MSA.  There is obvously a lot more persistence here.