http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1977761,00.asp
Beyond the Valley: 10 Blooming U.S. Cities for Tech
June 15, 2006
By Deborah Rothberg
There is a ferocious debate among business, employment, technology
and urban planning publications of late over the location of the next
big U.S. technology hub.
Some put their money on the Rocky Mountain region, others point to
massive land purchases by Google and Microsoft in potato country, but
one of the things almost unanimously agreed on is that it will not be
in Silicon Valley.
Why not?
For one, the cost of living is staggeringly high. A $70,000 salary in
the San Francisco valley doesn't even ensure that an individual would
break even, with costs of living roughly 40 percent higher than in
Sacramento.
"To some extent, Silicon Valley has been a victim of its own success,
causing the cost base of its companies to accelerate," said Paul
Forster, CEO and co-founder of Indeed.com, a Stamford, Conn.-based
job search engine.
"Not everyone wants to live the California lifestyle. There are
places with a higher quality of life and tech-challenging positions,"
said Brandon Courtney, vice-president of Spherion professional
services, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based staffing and recruitment firm.
Read more here about the tech market in Mountain States.
Second, realities of technology today allow for a certain amount of
scattering of hot-spots.
"The reality of technology today is that with relatively low costs,
you could build the infrastructure that would allow you to be a
Silicon-like valley. But, there will only be one Silicon Valley,"
said Courtney.
The shifting employment market creates an environment where workers
have some say in where they can go to find a good job.
"Because of the expanding economy and the reinvestment in technology,
the demand for skilled professionals continues to strengthen.
The paradigm of the market has shifted from employer-driven to
candidate-driven, with an added focus on employee retention," said
Courtney.
In his keynote at the May Xtech Conference in Amsterdam, technology
essayist and entrepreneur Paul Graham asked, "Could you reproduce
Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?" He
hypothesized that as few as two elements could cause the formation of
a new tech nucleus.
"I think you only need two kinds of people to create a technology
hub: rich people and nerds. They're the limiting reagents in the
reaction that produces startups, because they're the only ones
present when startups get started. Everyone else will move," said
Graham.
While not everyone agrees with Graham, most concur that the right
epicenter will draw the masses in the way that the San Francisco
valley once did. Everyone has a list, and while each has the
potential to spell out the next Silicon-like Valley, only one will.
eWEEK editorial scoured dozens of news stories, job reports and
technology forecasts, crunched them all together with a dash of
insight, and came up with the following 10 cities and their
surrounding areas.
1. Seattle • City population: 570,430 • Companies that call it
home: Amazon, RealNetworks, AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile • The details:
The June 2006 Dice Report ranks Seattle No. 10 in available jobs,
with 1,901 listed, up over 300 from one year ago. Indeed.com ranks
Seattle No. 4 in number of tech jobs per capita, with 13 jobs per
1000 people. And a WashTech/CWA report issued this week calls Seattle
a "bright spot" of technology growth in a recovering market.
2. Atlanta • City population: 419,122 • Companies that call it
home: Cingular, EarthLink, Internet Security Systems • The details:
The June 2006 Dice Report ranks Atlanta No. 9 in available jobs, with
2,366 listed. Indeed.com ranks Atlanta No. 1 in tech number of jobs
per capita, with 17 per 1000 people.
3. Boston • City population: 569,165 • Companies that call it
home: Akamai Technologies, EMC Corp., CMGI venture capital • The
details: The June 2006 Dice Report ranks Boston No. 7 in available
jobs, with 2,699 listed, up over 400 from one year ago. Indeed.com
ranks Boston No. 5 in the number of tech jobs per capita, with 11 per
1000 people. WashTech/CWA, in a report issued this week, gives Boston
props for holding its own in IT job creation after the recession.
4. Washington, D.C. • City population: 553,523 • Companies that
call it home: Sprint Nextel, America Online (nearby), Computer
Sciences Corporation • The details: The June 2006 Dice Report ranks
Washington No. 2 in available jobs, with 2,548 listed. Indeed.com
ranks Washington No. 3 in the number of tech jobs per capita, with 14
jobs per 1000 people. WashTech/CWA, in a report issued this week,
gives Washington props for holding its own in IT job creation after
the recession.
5. Dallas• City population: 1,210,393 • Companies that call it
home: Aspen Communications, CompUSA, Electronic Data Systems, Kinkos
• The details: WashTech/CWA, in a report issued this week, gives
Dallas props for hold its own in IT job creation after the recession.
Dallas is home to the "technology corridor," the source of nearly
100,000 jobs before the recession.
6. Philadelphia • City population: 1,470,151 • Companies that
call it home: Unisys, SAP America, Verizon • The details: The June
2006 Dice Report ranks Philadelphia No. 6 in available jobs, with
3,345 listed, up approximately 500 from one year ago. Indeed.com
ranks Philadelphia No. 13 in the number of tech jobs per capita, with
eight jobs per 1000 people.
7. Chicago • City population: 2,862,244 • Companies that call it
home: Accenture, US Robotics, Telephone and Data Systems, Click
Commerce, Motorola (nearby) • The details: The June 2006 Dice Report
ranks Chicago No. 5 in available jobs, with 3,648 listed, up almost
700 from one year ago.
8. Orlando • City population: 205,648 • Companies that call it
home: Lockheed Martin, Symantec, Electronic Arts (nearby) • The
details: Indeed.com ranks Orlando No. 9 in the number of jobs per
capita, with 10 technology jobs per 1000 people. Joel Kotkin, a
writer on economic and political trends, lists Orlando among areas
ripe to become the next Silicon Valley, noting its quick economic and
population growth, and according to Inc. Magazine, among the reasons
is that Florida has a job growth of 9.6 percent between 2001-2005,
the third highest in the country.
9. Los Angeles• City population: 3,845,541 • Companies that call
it home: DirecTV, Belkin, Univision, Memorex • The details: The June
2006 Dice Report ranks Lose Angeles No. 4 in available jobs, with
5,218 listed, up over 700 from one year ago. NimbleCat.com, a tech
job-tracking service, finds that Los Angeles comes in first place in
tech job creation.
10. Charlotte • City population: 651,359 • Companies that call it
home: SPX Corporation, Time Warner Cable, Bank of America • The
details: Indeed.com ranks Charlotte No. 7 in the number of tech jobs
per capita, with 10 technology jobs per 1000 people. Inc. Magazine in
its Boomtowns '06 report calls Charlotte the 11th best place in the
United States to do business. The cost of living in Charlotte is 30
percent lower than in the San Francisco Bay Area.
There were more than a few cities and suburban areas that didn't make
the top 10 but still show promising growth. Among these, a few areas
stand out that are close enough to major metropolitan areas but not
in such proximity that their costs skyrocket.
"We see a lot of technology job growth in pockets of Florida, Central
New Jersey and in Maryland suburbs," said Courtney.
Areas of Nevada better known for gambling and sin came up more than
once.
"Las Vegas and Reno are growing rapidly, and they continue to be on
the higher end for job growth. In Las Vegas, specifically, there's
been a 10-year run on call centers and shared service centers.
There's a lot of labor, and people want to live there," said Courtney.
However, most agree that due to growth in the popularity of telework
and a stronger IT employment market, the jobs could end up nearly
anywhere.
"I think we're going to see a lot more people spread out because of
the way communications technology makes it easy to work from
anywhere, through e-mail and instant messages, and more and more
videoconferencing," said Graham.
"In the end, the skills are going to be where the people want to
relocate because there's a good quality of life."
Check out eWEEK.com's IT Management Center for the latest news,
reviews and analysis on IT management from CIOInsight.com.
Copyright (c) 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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