Aerial view of Silicon Valley San Jose, California aerialarchives.com |
Yesterday we spoke about why it is so expensive to live in San Francisco. The surreal progressive logic of land-use policies, the cumbersome building permit process, building and zoning ordinances make it incredibly pointless to create new housing developments to accommodate its growing population. Today we are going to talk about "The World's Leading Startup Cities," by Richard Florida, for CityLab. Mr. Florida survey cities around the United States and the world, strong enough to challenge the home of Facebook, Twitter, and Google for supremacy. As Mr. Florida explains it, "...recent years have seen the rise of an increasingly potent group of cities around the world that are generating new startups in creative and unique ways.
Venture Village Tel Aviv, Israel venturevillage.eu |
Chart of world's leading startup cities citylab.com |
Charting the rankings of startup ecosystems citylab.com |
If you notice, half of the world's top startup ecosystems are in the United States and Canada; 16 out of the 20 span North American and Europe. Be that as it may, the fact that Tel Aviv, Singapore, São Paulo, and Bangalore indicate that startups are taking form in so-called emerging economies. Richard Florida notes, "And it is likely that cities in China and other Asian nations would scored highly if data were available."
Singapore Singtel Singapore innovationiseverywhere.com |
Austin, Texas skyline sparefoot.com |
...take a cross-disciplinary approach to champion innovation and entrepreneurship across functional areas and departments; work with other outside governments to identify address, and solve key problems; and think like a startup, not a government agency.
The Einstein Kaffee in front of Project A incubator Berlin, Germany venturevillage.eu |
Cities don't need to compete against each other always...Indeed, they should seek to compete together whenever they can. It is through friendly competition and collaboration that will make progress.
Richard Florida describes the new rankings as, "...the world of startups remains spiky, with many of the most powerful global cities like New York (known more as financial centers than high-tech locations) coming to the fore as centers for startups and innovation." The interesting aspect of startups is that they tend to gravitate towards denser, more diverse, more vibrant urban centers, and away from the traditional suburban office parks. This is true not just in New York, Berlin, London, and Paris, but also, as we mentioned in yesterday's post on housing in San Francisco, in the Bay Area. Case in point, Richard Florida's own continuing research suggests a shift in startup activity from suburban Silicon Valley to the more urban San Francisco. Blogger would say that this is not real news because this trend has been going on over the last few years. Perhaps Mr. Florida's research can present data on how this was made possible and why urban San Francisco as opposed to remaining in the South San Francisco Bay Area.
Regardless, the startup activity shift away from the suburban office park to the urban environment is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that startups can act as a catalyst for urban revitalization, however the bad thing is that they can create tension between tech workers, long-time residents, and local governments. Yet, it is pointless to temper the startups, innovation, and entrepreneurial efforts, all which are the mechanisms for urban growth and revenue sources for transit and housing improvements. The real trick is to find a balance between the two. Perhaps, this is something that the City of San Francisco might consider to help make housing affordable again.
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