Analysis shows five cities, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston, gained the lion's share of “innovation industry” US jobs from 2005 to 2017
This Wired write-up of a Brookings analysis is the baseline document for a story the coverage keeps circling back to: the same five coastal metros — San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston — that captured most US innovation-industry jobs from 2005 to 2017 kept compounding afterward. A follow-on Brookings study found only ten US cities had grown their tech-job share since 2010, with no economic windfall elsewhere.
The later coverage shows the winners defending their lead rather than dispersing it: Boston was on track to pass NYC as the second-largest US funding hub in 2018 with $5.2B invested, 96.9% of Bay Area tech startups stayed in the region even in the disruption-heavy year of 2020, and Seattle led the US in large tech office leases that year. The 2005–2017 job concentration and the capital concentration documented in the CB Insights VC funding comparison with Beijing and Shanghai are two sides of the same agglomeration pattern.
First-order effects
The five named metros — San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, San Diego, and Boston — capture the bulk of new high-value innovation jobs, while metros outside the group see their share of such employment stagnate or shrink.
Employers in the winning cities gain a self-reinforcing talent pool, while companies elsewhere face a thinner local pipeline for innovation-industry roles.
Second-order effects
Capital follows the jobs: Boston's rise toward the number-two funding slot and the Bay Area's startup stickiness show venture money concentrating in the same metros where the job gains landed, raising funding access for founders there relative to peers elsewhere.
The losing metros face pressure to buy growth — tax incentives and relocation subsidies aimed at luring innovation employers — rather than growing their own base.
Third-order effects
If the agglomeration pattern holds, US innovation capacity consolidates into a handful of coastal hubs, sharpening the regional inequality Brookings flagged and making federal or state place-based policy the likelier counterweight.
Concentration also raises single-point fragility: shocks that hit the Bay Area or Seattle hit the national innovation economy disproportionately, since so few metros hold most of the capability.
The trend: US innovation-industry jobs and capital are consolidating into a handful of coastal metros, with each year of data reinforcing the agglomeration rather than dispersing it.
Numerous metros have the potential to become one of America's next dynamic innovation centers. Some 35 metros, far removed from the coastal superstars, surface as candidates for growth center designation. @robatkinsonitif @MarkMuro1 @jacob_whiton https://www.brookings.edu/...
“Specifically, the nation needs a massive federal effort to transform a short list of heartland metro areas into self-sustaining growth centers that will benefit entire regions.” @Brookingsin https://www.brookings.edu/.... What could @SheffCityRegion do with $700m for AMID and GI…
Who wants to be America's next top innovation hub? A new report says it's time for the federal gov't to take concrete steps to counter the nation's regional division and avoid ceding its innovation lead to China. @robatkinsonitif @MarkMuro1 @jacob_whiton https://www.brookings.edu…
“Since 2005, five metro areas — Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego — accounted for 90 percent of all US growth in ‘innovation sector’ jobs.” “Meanwhile, 343 metro areas lost a share of these jobs in that same period.” https://www.vox.com/...
I'm a little surprised LA isn't in here. And I'd be really surprised if San Francisco gains share in the next 12 years. It feels like we're close to a top tick of Valley dominance to me given trends around remote learning and remote work but I'm excited to see how it unfolds... h…
“... innovation industries cluster in cities where there are lots of highly educated workers, sophisticated suppliers and research institutions.” We have what is needed. We just need the will and collaboration to make it happen. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Further evidence that growing regional inequality is *the* story of our moment: pretty incredible @BrookingsMetro finding that >90 percent of all growth in innovation jobs (software, pharma etc) between 2005 and 2017 was clustered in just five metro areas. https://www.brookings.e…
Our region has become a hub for innovation & high-quality talent. In a recent report by @BrookingsInst, #SanDiego was 1 of 5 metros to collectively account for 90% of the nation's innovation-sector growth from 2005 to 2017. Read more via @nytimes: https://www.nytimes.com/...
The concentration of U.S. tech companies in high-cost areas like Silicon Valley reduces the nation's competitiveness and increases regional inequality. @RobAtkinsonITIF, @MarkMuro1, and @jacob_whiton outline a pathway to address this imbalance: https://www.brookings.edu/...
The case for growth centers: How to spread tech innovation across America https://www.brookings.edu/... “The time has come for the nation to support the emergence of new tech stars in new places” #RiseOfRest https://twitter.com/...