Just five metropolitan areas—Boston; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; and San Jose, Calif.—accounted for 90% of all U.S. high-tech job growth between 2005 to 2017, according to the research by think-tank scholars Mark Muro and Jacob Whiton of the Brookings Institution and Rob Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The nation’s 377 other metro areas accounted for 10% of the 256,063 jobs created during that period in 13 high-tech industries such as software publishing, pharmaceutical manufacturing and semiconductor production. Among the smaller cities that gained tech jobs were Madison, Wis.; Albany, N.Y.; Provo, Utah; and Pittsburgh.
The result is increased concentration of high-tech resources in just a few places and a strengthening of economic forces that are dividing the nation.
I have been banging the drum on this for years. Instead of spreading to other areas the opposite is happening. By the way three of the five cities are in California, the state that some love to hate here. Two are in Bay Area.
Tech industries find they are most productive when they have resources clustered in few places. Such clustering—which economists call “agglomeration”—allows for the fast spread of new ideas and a concentrated talent pool from which businesses recruit. The forces of agglomeration, economists say, run counter to the idea that technology might allow people to work from anywhere, even in remote places.
I find it funny you say that way. Early America was build by people who were rejected by England. I am surprised you think being a slave labor makes you an alpha man. An alpha man is one who breaks away from the crowd (generally made up the beta people), lives a rich and varied life. Your notion that an alpha man someone who lives a routine and seeks to stick around the security and comfort of establishment is not true.
Things are not always the same for first in the queue and late in the queue. For a new comer, I will say it is a misery unless makes an entry into higher echelon (and lands ahead of others in the queue like Mark Z). But, for someone starting new , or someone who does not have much to loose, the risk vs reward trade off change and I leave it to the personal preference.
Also being an alpha man means someone who can take a larger risk than others because he understands the rewards vs risk better than others.
Also, my position in this debate has never been that Bay Area is bad or some other area is good. I have always said it all depends upon what is important to you. Bay area has only 7 million people of entire 40 million CA population or about 400 Million US population. Have that perspective.
Trying to put words in my mouth again? Just saying the journalist who wrote the article doesn’t understand series. The stats he/she quoted is of no use to investors. Investors think about the future and not basked in the past. For each city, I don’t know whether it is an increasing or decreasing trend or sideways.
Since the days of gold rush, SF-BA remains center of attraction. This is common to many big cities like NY,LA…etc. There may be new cities coming, but that will be the spill over of big cities.
I am trying to pin you down for a concrete prediction. I am saying the current trend of concentration will go on. You seem to be disagreeing but refuse to say so explicitly. What exactly are you saying other than other people are wrong?
@manch seems to have a point. You must be able to tell how Austin stands a good chance to steal business from Silicon Valley. It is quite possible that bigger (SFBA) gets even bigger. It has happened in the past and it may well happen in the future. In terms of RE investment, both offer a different kind of products. SFBARE is high in appreciation, and Austin is high in income. Both suite different kind of investors. I have a friend who is dead against investing in BARE because you can lock your money for a long time particularly in low market periods, But, with Austin kind of property, you can be in and out in shorter period.
Is not my job to tell the journalist how to present his data correctly, btw I don’t have access to his data.