Building a SoCal Superstar Region for Innovation
By Eric Eide
We were thrilled to see San Diego included in the top five superstar metropolitan areas in The Brookings Institution’s new report The Case for Growth Centers. The study calls attention to five superstar metro areas — Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego — that are capturing a greater national share of innovation sector jobs. Metro areas like San Diego have reason to celebrate — innovation sectors create high paying jobs and provide economic benefits to their metros, including additional tax revenue.
At the Alliance we seek to nurture and accelerate the growth of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem across Southern California and San Diego’s success is our region’s success. At the same time many of us were surprised to see the Los Angeles superstar metro area, which also encompasses half of Orange County, rank so poorly in the Brookings report. The combined region accounted for the largest percentage decline of innovation related jobs out of the top 100 metropolitan areas (see Appendix A). The report does not sufficiently explain their methodology or give much insight into the contributing factors behind the changes in innovation sector jobs for any of the cities over the 12 year measurement period. Assuming the Brookings report is accurate, it doesn’t change the larger story about SoCal’s innovation potential as a superstar region!
Continue reading on the Alliance website.
Eric Eide is Director of Ecosystem Development at the Alliance for SoCal Innovation. You can also find him on LinkedIn and the Alliance website.
