Seattle Tops Visa’s List of Most Innovative Cities

A Visa analysis of innovation and creativity among the nation’s top 50 metro areas has Seattle ranked first in combined scoring, followed by Austin, Nashville, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. Visa’s Innovation Index measures entrepreneurialism, community support and creativity on a per capita basis throughout the major Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Each of the categories were scored individually.

To measure entrepreneurship, Visa considered the average number of new businesses, expansions, new divisions and the number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office in 2003. Austin scored the highest in this measure, followed by San Diego, Palm Beach, Houston and Raleigh.

U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics were used in determining community support, measured as the percentage of people employed by social organizations and the number of volunteers. In this category, Providence scored the highest, followed by Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Louisville and Nashville.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, New York and Seattle round out the top five in the index's self-expression category. Variables for this measure were based on the percentage of adults employed in occupations classified as creative such as artists, musicians, architects, designers and writers.

Visa examined the three measures of innovation and creativity to complement its Ideas Happen campaign, which awards 12 prizes of $25,000 to help jump-start innovative ideas within communities. The campaign is meant to encourage young adults to express ideas that could lead to new businesses.