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Useful Stats: 2003 High Tech GDP Location Quotient

November 22, 2004

Using data from its 2004 Best Performing Cities Index, Milken has generated a comprehensive table ranking cities by one- and five-year measurements of job growth, wages and salaries, and relative high tech gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and other measurements.

SSTI would like to draw readers' attention to one of those other measurements, Milken's high-tech GDP location quotient (LQ), which may be of some value to the tech-based economic development community. LQ is defined as a measure of high-tech concentration, with the U.S. given a value of 1.0. For the Milken study, metro areas having an LQ higher than 1.0 are said to be more concentrated in high tech sectors than the U.S.

Based on 2003 data, 54 of Milken's 200 largest cities are at or above 1.0. At the heart of Silicon Valley, the San Jose, Calif., metro area continues to rank first with a value of 3.48, followed by Boulder-Longmont, Colo. (2nd), Albuquerque (3rd), Boise, Idaho (4th) and Portland-Vancouver (5th).

Each of the 10 measures presented in Milken's table, as well as overall rankings, are fully sortable for the 200 largest metro areas and 118 smallest ones. They are available at http://bestcities.milkeninstitute.org/.

California