Atlanta Emerging as One of Largest Tech Hubs (Columbus, Macon: universities, tax)

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Another spot-on article about all of Atlanta’s attributes - which were already consistently highlighted in the Amazon sweepstakes. The article even mentions the Midwest—which...wait for it...is also an Atlanta attribute. Atlanta is often touted because of its superior connections and centralized location to most mega-regions of the United States: the Southeast, Florida, Texas, the Midwest/Great Lakes, and the Northeast.

Atlanta’s Attributes
Colleges/Universities
Diversity
Great Professional Environment for Women
Black Entrepreneurship
The Magnet for SEC college graduates and alumni
Dynamic Culture
Entertainment and Music Center
Capital of Hip-Hop (which is American and world youth culture)
Centralized Location (see Megaregion blurb above)
Dynamic Intown neighborhoods
Heavy Rail
Heavy Rail connecting four out of the five largest business districts, plus the airport.
Capital of the American South
Capital of the Piedmont
Capital of Black America
Etc., etc.

There are overall positives for Tech/Business in Atlanta but some of what is listed isn't:
Capital of Hip-Hop (which is American and world youth culture) - Tech doesn't care;
Capital of Black America - D.C. and NYC would beg to differ.
Heavy Rail connecting 4 out of the 5 largest business districts, plus the airport. Added two stations on north line in 30 years... Transit infrastructure for metro Atlanta is a weakness, not a strength because of lack of rail expansion, limited to no connectivity with Cobb and Gwinnett, no Outer Perimeter and a single airport for a 6 million metro area. Of metro areas with 4 million or more residents, Atlanta is in the minority with only one major commercial airport along with Boston and Detroit.
Also, you've now got issues with voter suppression.

Nashville, and Charlotte are not to be discounted in the southeast due to COL, weather, scenery and infrastructure. Miami I don't see as quite as competitive due to COL, climate change challenges and land availability.

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. GT was recently ranked as the nation's #4 engineering school. Emory is known world-wide.

Emory is excellent academically but is it known for IT/Tech? No. UGA would be a better choice. G-Tech is great but again, statewide, Georgia doesn't have the breath of colleges in terms of Tech/Engineering:
UT - Austin
UT -Arlington (40,000 students)
Texas Tech
Texas A&M, the largest engineering school in the U.S.
Houston
SMU
And as said before, Texas draws a lot OU and OSU grads, both big engineering schools.

Google "what majors is "name university" known for and Emory is not a Tech/engineering place.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Well, to be fair a ton of companies are also relocating to Austin and while I do think it’s hip, it definitely wouldn’t be among my top low cost lists, with the exception of corporate tax breaks. They still have to pay a considerable chunk of change to employees because employer competition is high too. I guess you do still save compared to SEA, SFO, BOS, ect but it’s not exactly a bargain in terms of CoL.

I agree - I was referring to Nashville in this case. Austin was like this a decade ago but is now priced out of reach for many.

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by JMatl

No, Dallas does not have more Fintech than Atlanta. This is a major hub of it actually, with payment infrastructure in place much more important to the Nation than anything found at a Dallas back office for a major Bank.

You seem to be increasingly threatened by Atlanta's success as the years go by....

Atlanta does very well in Fintech. Comparisons can be difficult given that Georgia, like most states is dominated by a single metro area which is not the case in Texas. That said, I'll revise my counterpoint to recognize that on a state-wide basis, Texas does very well with D/FW not as as much the focal point for Fintech.
https://www.fintech.coffee/research/...tech-companies. I'll add to that there is significant financial back office work in DFW, home to the U.S. branches for Honda Finance, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, Nissan Motor Acceptance, and Toyota Finance

[TexasToGA]

Originally Posted by walker1962

Capital of Hip-Hop (which is American and world youth culture) - Tech doesn't care;
Capital of Black America - D.C. and NYC would beg to differ.

No one in the United States besides you would consider NYC the Capital of Black America. DC has a strong argument but in general Atlanta is definitely considered more of a black mecca than DC especially considering it's in the center of the region in the United States of the most black people (Southeast) There's a whole thread on here that discussed this for years and Atlanta was the clear winner by far. Yes I would argue there's not really one black mecca but Atlanta still has the strongest attributes of any city to claim that title.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by walker1962

There are overall positives for Tech/Business in Atlanta but some of what is listed isn't:
Capital of Hip-Hop (which is American and world youth culture) - Tech doesn't care;
Capital of Black America - D.C. and NYC would beg to differ.
Heavy Rail connecting 4 out of the 5 largest business districts, plus the airport. Added two stations on north line in 30 years... Transit infrastructure for metro Atlanta is a weakness, not a strength because of lack of rail expansion, limited to no connectivity with Cobb and Gwinnett, no Outer Perimeter and a single airport for a 6 million metro area. Of metro areas with 4 million or more residents, Atlanta is in the minority with only one major commercial airport along with Boston and Detroit.
Also, you've now got issues with voter suppression.

Nashville, and Charlotte are not to be discounted in the southeast due to COL, weather, scenery and infrastructure. Miami I don't see as quite as competitive due to COL, climate change challenges and land availability.

NYC has a larger Black pop but is 12% Black, while DC has like half a million less Black people then Atlanta.. Atlanta has been gaining the largest Black growth for like decades. Further more Atlanta is the center of Black tech.

Atlanta fast becoming a mecca for African Americans in tech

southern co, apple fund tech hub atlanta hbcu students

Far as transportation Atlanta has heavy rail, not only will that always be advantage over the cities you just mentions in the south east just having light rail. but there light rail is still decades behind MARTA rail mileages in the first place. Lastly I never seen a business state negatives about Atlanta airport rather the opposite, Atlanta being an air hub, it have more connection to cities international and domestically then any other city in the region.

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

It says something about Nashville; it doesn't really say anything about the other finalists besides NYC and DC.

How is this problematic when Atlanta has been the sole city in the state attracting more and more tech jobs across a variety of companies over the past several months? And there are several other states with only one metro acting as a major tech magnet, to include TN also: MA, NY, VA, AL, UT, ID, WA, OR, MN, WI, IL, IN, NE, IA, etc.

It can be problematic because the pace of growth outstrips resources. Look at Atlanta's traffic? I remember back in the early 1990s, plans were to build a second commercial airport in Gwinnett but the locals lacked the vision to see how it would really benefit them and the metro area. Same thing with the Outer Perimeter talk. I'd bet money if both had been built by 2010, the impact on the state/Atlanta would have been significantly favorable!

Not sure why you list certain states like NE, IA, ID, OR, WI, IN and AL. Those states aren't getting much of anything tech-wise. Boise ID yes, WA, that's old news when MSFT and Boeing have been there for 30 years or more and Amazon was founded there in the mid-90s.

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by TexasToGA

If it was just one thing that Nashville attracted over Atlanta you could brush it off, but several other things have been announced for Nashville including a huge Oracle campus just announced today. I think this Oracle campus will be larger and have more jobs than almost any one thing Atlanta has attracted in the last ten years (it's debatable how many jobs Microsoft will have in the end). I think honestly it's starting to say Nashville is generally more attractive for employers right now than Atlanta. As discussed over and over on this forum Atlanta has a lot of negative perceptions nationally. When employers cite the reason they are locating to Atlanta they usually cite diversity as one of the major factors. That's just a phase right now following the George Floyd unrest that will not last nationally long term.


https://www.bizjournals.com/nashvill...y%20tech%20hub


https://fox17.com/news/local/mayor-o...bs-development

Having been to Nashville, Charlotte and Raleigh, I think anyone can see the attraction of them all. I think Nashville is the new southeast darling also because its in the Central Time zone and being farther north, may pull talent from the Midwest and its reputation as music hub gives it high visibility. Where is lags ATL is national connectivity. Collegiately, its also not quite as well represented locally as Georgia with only UT and Vanderbilt as high value schools but again, it can pull from the SEC and Big 10 and the latter is a better conference academically than the southeast.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by walker1962

Emory is excellent academically but is it known for IT/Tech? No. UGA would be a better choice. G-Tech is great but again, statewide, Georgia doesn't have the breath of colleges in terms of Tech/Engineering:
UT - Austin
UT -Arlington (40,000 students)
Texas Tech
Texas A&M, the largest engineering school in the U.S.
Houston
SMU
And as said before, Texas draws a lot OU and OSU grads, both big engineering schools.

Google "what majors is "name university" known for and Emory is not a Tech/engineering place.

Why are you in this thread boasting Texas not even just one city but the whole state to compare just to Atlanta. You just mention a bunch of universities that not even the same Metro. Houston to Dallas is about as far as Atlanta to Raleigh to give prospective. TX and GA are not the same size, area wise you might as well group GA, NC and part together cause that how broad of area being compare.

[walker1962]

https://about.crunchbase.com/blog/ra...ch-ecosystems/

More research, and have to give ATL more due with regard to its place in the subset of Fintech