Tech Baltimore#2: The Best Cities For Technology Jobs (Columbia, Riverside: 2014, houses)

[Infinite_heights77]

I know this article was written about 2 years ago, but I think it's still relevant.

The Best Cities For Technology Jobs | Joel Kotkin

The Best Cities For Technology Jobs



Appearing in: Forbes.com

During tough economic times, technology is often seen as the one bright spot. In the U.S. this past year technology jobs outpaced the overall rate of new employment nearly four times. But if you’re looking for a tech job, you may want to consider searching outside of Silicon Valley. Though the Valley may still be the big enchilada in terms of venture capital and innovation, it hasn’t consistently generated new tech employment.
Take, for example, Seattle. Out of the 51 largest metro areas in the U.S., the Valley’s longtime tech rival has emerged as our No. 1 region for high-tech growth, based on long- and short-term job numbers. Built on a base of such tech powerhouses as Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing, Seattle has enjoyed the steadiest and most sustained tech growth over the past decade. It is followed by Baltimore (No. 2), Columbus, Ohio (No. 3), Raleigh, N.C. (No. 4) and Salt Lake City, Utah (No. 5).
To determine the best cities for high-tech jobs, we looked at the latest high-tech employment data collected by EMSI, an economic modeling firm. The Praxis Strategy Group‘s Mark Schill charted those areas that have gained the most high-tech manufacturing, software and services jobs over the past 10 years, equally weighting the last five years and the last two. We also included measures of concentration of tech employment in order to make sure we were not giving too much credence to relatively insignificant tech regions. Our definition of high tech industries is based on the one used by TechAmerica, the industry’s largest trade association.
Despite the Valley’s remarkable concentration of tech jobs — roughly six times the national average — it ranked a modest No. 17 in our survey. This relatively low ranking reflects the little known fact that, even with the recent last dot-com craze sparking over 5% growth over the past two years, the Valley remains the “biggest loser” among the nation’s tech regions, surrendering roughly one quarter of its high -tech jobs — about 80,000 — in the past decade. Only New York City (No. 44) lost more tech jobs during that time.

[Infinite_heights77]

This is interesting indeed!!!?


Best Places for High Tech Growth Ranking of 2, 5, and 10 year growth, industry concentration, and 5 and 10 year growth momentum Rank Metropolitan Area Rank Score

1 Seattle 82.2
2 Baltimore 75.7
3 Columbus 67.9
4 Raleigh 63.2
5 Salt Lake City 60.0
6 Jacksonville 59.2
7 Washington, DC 58
8 New Orleans 58.8
9 Riverside-San Bernardino 58.2
10 San Diego 56.1
11 Indianapolis 55.9
12 Buffalo 55.8
13 San Antonio 54.0
14 Charlotte 53.5
15 St. Louis 51.6
16 Pittsburgh 50.8
17 San Jose 50.5
18 Houston 50.2
19 Hartford 50.0
20 Nashville 49.6
21 Providence 49.2
22 Boston 48.3
23 Minneapolis-St. Paul 48.3
24 Orlando 48.1
25 Portland 48.1
26 Philadelphia 47.4
27 Louisville 47.2
28 Cincinnati 46.6
29 San Francisco 46.6
30 Denver 46.4
31 Richmond 45.6
32 Austin 45.1
33 Atlanta 44.6
34 Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News 42.4
35 Memphis 42.2
36 Milwaukee 41.5
37 Rochester 41.2
38 Cleveland 40.9
39 Phoenix 38.5
40 Detroit 37.7
41 Tampa 37.5
42 Miami 33.2
43 Sacramento 32.1
44 New York 31.4
45 Las Vegas 31.2
46 Dallas-Fort Worth 31.0
47 Chicago 30.2
48 Los Angeles 29.5
49 Oklahoma City 26.7
50 Birmingham 23.5
51 Kansas City 21.6 Rankings measure employment in 45 high technology manufacturing, services, and software industry sectors.


This piece first appeared at Forbes.com.
Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.
Mark Schill of Praxis Strategy Group perfomed the economic analysis for this piece.

[mcleanexec]

This article lost all credibility when it placed Jacksonville FLA and Bmore ahead of DC/NOVA. LMAO

Anyone been to Riverside recently?

People travel from bmore everyday to work in DC. not vice versa.

[Infinite_heights77]

My sentiments exactly!!

Originally Posted by mcleanexec

This article lost all credibility when it placed Jacksonville FLA and Bmore ahead of DC/NOVA. LMAO

Anyone been to Riverside recently?

People travel from bmore everyday to work in DC. not vice versa.

[Muffy1]

This list is bogus!!!

[Infinite_heights77]

LOL!! Where is my beloved Philly?

[james777]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

LOL!! Where is my beloved Philly?

Philly is #26 and NY is #44. I have to agree with Muffy, this list is bogus. There is no way NYC could be that far down the list when it has such a booming tech sector.

Generally, the people making these lists will set the criteria to make the results come out the way they want them to be. Instead of making very general criteria such as the biggest tech companies or the most tech companies, they will set parameters such as the most new tech companies under five years old, or the most new privately held tech companies under three years old, or the most tech companies with under a certain number of employees, or the fastest growing tech companies by percentage revenue increases, etc. After they have used their skewed criteria that most people don't understand and is virtually meaningless, they can proudly state that Columbus and Jacksonville are bigger tech hotbeds than San Jose, Seattle, or NYC.

The criteria used in this study is given in the third paragraph down, but it is still not crystal clear. They call Boeing a tech company; so does that mean that all of the employment increase at Boeing is considered tech because it is a tech company even though the jobs may not be tech jobs?

Civic boosters will go to great lengths to make their city stand out, and this study proves it.

[Zea mays]

Originally Posted by james777

There is no way NYC could be that far down the list when it has such a booming tech sector.

Despite Big Ambitions, New York’s Tech Scene Is Still Starting Up

Half of New York’s Tech Workers Lack College Degrees, Report Says

[KLynch10]

The list is for growth in the industry, not overall jobs... the list is not bogus. Baltimore's scene is surging right now with the BioPark, Millenial Media, the ETC, Betamore, BWTech, and many growing companies in South and Southeast Baltimore. Several EdTech companies have left NYC for Baltimore recently as well.

[trickymost]

Originally Posted by KLynch10

The list is for growth in the industry, not overall jobs... the list is not bogus. Baltimore's scene is surging right now with the BioPark, Millenial Media, the ETC, Betamore, BWTech, and many growing companies in South and Southeast Baltimore. Several EdTech companies have left NYC for Baltimore recently as well.

The list most definitely is bogus. They're basing it on suburbs - Howard County and jobs which are no longer in Hunt Valley. They even link to an article from 2002, and mention companies which went bankrupt or were sold long ago.

And those companies you mentioned are not exactly what I'd call tech companies. They're more like industries creating tech jobs the same way a business creates accounting or HR jobs.

The real measure of a growing tech industry is the presence of big players looking to hire the best meat they can - and you don't see that here.

The established giants have no presence in Baltimore - Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, SAP, Apple, salesforce.com, Intel, etc. The up and coming do not either, they're staffing up in DC - Splunk, Rackspace, Workday, FireEye, ServiceNow, Box, etc.

Baltimore City, at least any way I measure it will not be a tech hub in the next 10-20 years. The taxes are too high compared to Northern VA, and the talent pool is much more shallow than in Baltimore. On top of that, the jobs for the most part pay anywhere from 20-50% LESS than DC metro area jobs (that includes Columbia).

And many of the tech companies who are here are on borrowed time. BillMeLater aka PayPal is moving jobs back to the bay area, is probably going to be spun off and sold soon. Safenet - same story.