DC/AZ/OR seems like an odd choice for third-tier tech hubs.

If I had to rank U.S. metro areas in terms of favorability for tech, I would do:

Tier 1: Bay Area

Tier 2: NYC, Seattle, Boston

Tier 3: Research Triangle, Pittsburg, Chicago

Tier 4: Austin, Boulder, Portland, LA/Santa Monica, Ann Arbor

Tier 5: Everywhere else.

There's some industry-specific tech support in various other cities (eg. oil in Houston, automotive in Detroit), but in terms of a general tech industry, they don't really register.

How can Chicago be below Austin? Chicago has Groupon, 1871, and Lightbank. Austin's downtown doesn't even compare to Chicago's downtown. It's horrible.

You're right; Chicago should be Tier 3. Editing the list a bit. There's a bit of a per-capita effect, though, where Chicago has a much larger population and many more other industries than say Austin, Boulder, or Portland, which makes them seem more tech-based even though the absolute number of firms & VC dollars is less.

It just depends. Plenty of great fintech in Chicago because of CME. Also plenty of great biotech in Chicago.

The SFBA B2C thing is not great in Chicago. IMO that's a retired man's game, but I thought bitcoin was dumb in 2010 so wtf do I know.

Lived in one, now a resident in the other, Austin's downtown doesn't even compare to the downtown of the other major cities in its own state, if you even only talked about public transit. Going east to west is a nightmare of transfers, going north to south (in non-COVID times) is a nightmare of sitting on either Guadalupe for an hour to go two miles or sitting on Lamar for an hour to go two miles. And that's IF your CapMetro bus is running on time that day.

You'll do marginally better driving your own car if you catch that section of Guadalupe going south right at the perfect time when the lights slowly cascade to green as you approach Riverside.

(Course the tradeoff here in Chicago is looping the block endlessly looking for a parking spot, but in non pandemic times, I'd trade the CTA for CapMetro in a heartbeat)

I'm not anti-Austin. I would live there for a year if the cost of living was cut in half. I just don't think the value is there.

Oh my apologies, I was hoping to concur but not paint you as anti-Austin as an individual. Sorry if my eagerness to agree gave the wrong impression.

And I even agree with you hear, now: I'd very likely move back for the same reason and if the council would stop caving to vocal minorities representing "neighborhood councils" who seem quite effective at derailing transportation planning.

Don't be so quick to push AZ out of the running.. we have (off the top of my head): Intel, Paypal, Zelle, American Express, Wells Fargo, Iridium, and supposedly a $26 Billion TSMC fab coming in the next few years. Tempe has offices for MS, KPMG, Norton/Lifelock, Netskope - and those were just what I could see from our LimeLight offices. That's on top of a pretty decent start-up/small biz scene.

I'm always surprised by how much tech. we have here now. So much more opportunity then back in 2000s..

I think the greater Salt Lake City area is making a somewhat successfull play so far to become "the silicon slopes".

There are plenty of successful states that aren't focused on tech. I moved to one of them, and I'm enjoying my life a lot more.

I was miserable in California – it's not for everyone. I'm betting that tech won't come to my area any time soon and that's a great thing.

I was careful to hedge that becoming a tech hub is not an inherent boon. It "could" be great, but I'm pretty sympathetic to locals being resistant to a bunch of tech cos and workers coming to their area and dramatically changing the fabric of the local culture without providing any benefits (or even a voice) to those who had lived there for the previous decades