A Quantitative Comparative Analysis of High-Tech Innovation Jobs Migration between Major USA Cities

Previous research indicates that the overwhelming number of American innovation jobs are attracted to one of five cities: Boston, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB, 2018) defines a combined statistical area (CSA) for a city as the combination of adjacent metropolitan areas. For example, Minneapolis & Saint Paul Minnesota are considered a CSA.

In total, this quantitative study compared 183 individual CSA’s making up 36 major USA cities. Three cohorts were formed: 14 CSA formed the Red cohort lost high technology innovation jobs, 10 CSAs formed the White cohort which neither lost nor gained jobs, and the Blue cohort of 12 CSA which increased jobs from 2000 to 2020. The 26 metrics collected on each CSA were divided into two categories: Demographics of the population and Geographics of the CSA.

The study found statistically significant differences between cohorts using a combination of summary descriptive statistics and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Within the Demographic analysis, the summary statistics suggest that cities with growing high technology innovation jobs favor an ethnic mix high in Asians and low in Latino’s. While considering the Geographic data, the study found significant differences between Red, White and Blue cohorts. The Blue (job growth) cohort tends to have higher: Median Household Income, median value of Owner-Occupied Housing, median selected monthly costs with mortgage, median grows rend and population per mile (in 2020).