Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I believe most of, if not all of Harvard's Business School is located in Allston, which is part of Boston.
Boston could claim BC, BU and Northeastern, amongst many other schools.
Maybe 100 years ago, when Boston College was actually in Boston
Boston College is in Chestnut Hill, about 5-6 miles outside the city, not Boston. Nor are Tufts and Brandeis.
Same situation in a lot of metros, that is why city limits (in many cases) aren't very smart... Stanford is in Palo Alto, UC Berkeley is obviously in the city it's named for and served by BART. Northwestern is in Evanston, but directly adjacent to Chicago and served by CTA...
I usually think it's pretty easy to get around in about a 400-500 square mile core outside of the cities downtown, people living within that core can access them usually in under an hour or so and it's "at their fingertips" daily... outside of that to me is pushing it.
That is why I also prefer MSA's to gauge what is available to you... CSA's only tell you what is close by.
For instance, San Jose, Providence and Baltimore are all roughly 40-50 linear miles from San Francisco, Boston and Washington DC respectively... to me that is too far, but, it is cool that they are also right there. Good for census and metro wealth purposes, possibly if you want to commute back and forth an hour. Not really for day to day living purposes, so I wouldn't consider living in DC having Baltimore as a "benefit" or San Jose as a benefit to SF... etc. If I'm living in SF or DC, I'm not going to go out much in Baltimore or San Jose for dinner and events... But Berkeley, Oakland? Sure, they feel like an extension of the SF community...they are much closer and faster to get to... same with Cambridge/Somerville... yada yada.
Maybe 100 years ago, when Boston College was actually in Boston
Boston College is in Chestnut Hill, about 5-6 miles outside the city, not Boston. Nor are Tufts and Brandeis.
Same situation in a lot of metros, that is why city limits (in many cases) aren't very smart... Stanford is in Palo Alto, UC Berkeley is obviously in the city it's named for and served by BART. Northwestern is in Evanston, but directly adjacent to Chicago and served by CTA...
I usually think it's pretty easy to get around in about a 400-500 square mile core outside of the cities downtown, people living within that core can access them usually in under an hour or so and it's "at their fingertips" daily... outside of that to me is pushing it.
That is why I also prefer MSA's to gauge what is available to you... CSA's only tell you what is close by.
For instance, San Jose, Providence and Baltimore are all roughly 40-50 linear miles from San Francisco, Boston and Washington DC respectively... to me that is too far, but, it is cool that they are also right there. Good for census and metro wealth purposes, possibly if you want to commute back and forth an hour. Not really for day to day living purposes, so I wouldn't consider living in DC having Baltimore as a "benefit" or San Jose as a benefit to SF... etc. If I'm living in SF or DC, I'm not going to go out much in Baltimore or San Jose for dinner and events... But Berkeley, Oakland? Sure, they feel like an extension of the SF community...they are much closer and faster to get to... same with Cambridge/Somerville... yada yada.
1. LOL..Please dont delude yourself into thinking that Bostonians dont work in surrounding cities as well--especially considering how few F500 companies there are in the city of Boston while so many are nearby, and I didnt create this strange thread. Furthermore Oakland is the number 1 work destination for Oaklanders, not somewhere else.
2. Oakland's largest company is not a public company. Kaiser Permanente has nearly $50 Billion in revenue annually.
Boston isnt next to a city even close to 1/4 its size, Oakland is right next to a city larger than it.
Also are you aware you are quoting Census ESTIMATES that have rather large MOEs. With numbers that close, it is a statistical tie.
Large companies? Er, Boston is home to just 2 Fortune 500 companies while Oakland is home to just 1.
Boston
84 Liberty Mutual $34.671 Billion
9 State Street Corp $10.207 Billion
Oakland
456 Clorox $5.326 Billion
Not an overwhelming advantage.
The Fortune 500 is flawed when trying to gauge something like this. Would you not consider Fidelity Investments a large company? It has over $1.5 trillion under management. MFS has $300 billion under management, Putnam Investments has $200 billion, and John Hancock $150 billion. Comparatively, Liberty Mutual, which is ranked on the Fortune has $72 billion, which is certainly substantial but it's not quite as impressive as some of the other Boston firms.
Boston's home to private equity powerhouses like Bain Capital (which although it has been vilified throughout the election season, is one of the best private equity houses on the planet), Thomas H Lee, Advent International, TA Associates, and Summit, among many others. Bain & Co and Boston Consulting Group are the two best consulting firms on the planet, along with LEK Consulting and Analysis Group. The world's largest organization of independent financial advisors, LPL Financial is also HQ'd in Boston.
Large companies that fall outside of Boston's primary core-economic sectors would be Gillette, American Tower, Bentley Motors US HQ, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New Balance, and Wayfair.
I think medical research would count as an economic factor, right? If so, Boston's tops in the world for this. In Boston-proper, you've got Mass General, Brigham & Women's, Dana Farber, Joslin Diabetes, Children's Hospital Boston, and Boston Medical Group, among several others.
So yea, I'd say there's some pretty substantial companies in Boston.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
If I could find CURRENT data for city GDP growth and city job growth we'd go with that, but all I have is MSA data and in both cases, the SF MSA has a faster rate of job growth and faster rate of GDP growth than the Boston MSA at present time.
It's hard to use growth as the only factor though. Boston's may not be moving as fast, but that's because Boston wasn't in a deep hole like the Bay Area was. Even if it is growing faster than Boston, here's the unemployment rate for these metros:
The Fortune 500 is flawed when trying to gauge something like this.
So yea, I'd say there's some pretty substantial companies in Boston.
No not really. I was responding to a quote about companies 'based' in each city and Boston has 2 F500s. Thanks tho.
Quote:
It's hard to use growth at the only factor though.
No, but its far more telling of present momentum than anything else.
Quote:
Boston's may not be moving as fast, but that's because Boston wasn't in a deep hole like the Bay Area was. Even if it is growing faster than Boston, here's the unemployment rate for these metros:
Boston: 5.9%
Oakland/SF/etc: 8.2%
True, but Boston has a lower unemployment rate than Houston and San Jose as well, but no one would seriously state that Boston has a stronger economy than those 2 places. On the contrary.
No not really. I was responding to a quote about companies 'based' in each city and Boston has 2 F500s. Thanks tho.
Yes, really. Are you seriously going to say the aforementioned companies aren't large? One of them is the third largest asset manager on the planet.
Quote:
No, but its far more telling of present momentum than anything else.
Not really. It just means these areas are finally recovering, whereas before they were being crushed. If you look at your thread about job growth, SF is 3.2% and Boston is 2.1%. It's a pretty decent gap, but the raw numbers growth is 59,400 to 52,100. Not all that different.
However, it's sort of tough to use either of these statistics since these stats are taking into account an entire metro area. Especially when you consider that Boston is the dominant city in its area and Oakland is not.
Quote:
True, but Boston has a lower unemployment rate than Houston and San Jose as well, but no one would seriously state that Boston has a stronger economy than those 2 places. On the contrary.
Well there are tons of factors to take into account, but I would say someone could easily make an argument that Boston's economy is stronger than those places. San Jose has an 8.5% unemployment rate, Houston 7%, and Boston 5.9. Houston and San Jose's current job growth rate is greater @ 3.5% & 3.2% vs 2.1% for Boston, but as I mentioned earlier in this post, that just means that Boston's economy recovered earlier. Even if there are more jobs available in these areas, there is also a higher number of unemployed people competing for these jobs. The higher job growth rate doesn't necessarily mean in a couple of months we're going to see these cities with a lower unemployment rate.
I don't remember the name of the thread...but it was from awhile back. It's a holiday here in Brasil, so I already started drinking a couple of hours ago, and therefore don't want to search for it haha. Regardless, in this thread, both you and KidPhilly did a great job of showing a metric which compared GDP growth vs Population growth over the past few years in a way to show how much an economy was growing organically vs how much it was growing due to its population growth. Houston was among the lowest organically growing economies, which San Jose was among the highest (if memory serves me correct). However the top dog in this stat was Boston. I think that's a testament to the strength Boston's economy in a way.
In terms of economic diversity, Boston trumps both Houston and San Jose. San Jose is heavily high-tech/biotech based, while Houston is primarily energy & oil. Conversely, Boston specializes in finance, biotech/high tech, medical research/hospitals, and education.
So while I'm sure there are arguments to be made for Houston's or San Jose's economy, there is certainly an argument for Boston's economy too.
No not really. I was responding to a quote about companies 'based' in each city and Boston has 2 F500s. Thanks tho.
No, but its far more telling of present momentum than anything else.
True, but Boston has a lower unemployment rate than Houston and San Jose as well, but no one would seriously state that Boston has a stronger economy than those 2 places. On the contrary.
Boston has a more stable, larger Economy than Houston with a lower unemployment rate, and a higher median income, so it is not an insane notion.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
