The Next Ten U.S. Cities To Become Tech Hubs

Article in eWEEK

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.

Subscribe to the myspace blog