How Did Your City Do?

How did PopSci find its high-tech cities, and how does your rate?

By Rena Marie Pacella Posted 03.01.2005 at 9:00 pm 0 Comments

Click here for the alphabetized list with overall rank and 6 subcategories

To determine which U.S. cities can claim the designation “high-tech,” we chose 36 technology indicators—our raw data—based on expert and staff opinion. Items such as “robotic surgery,” “number of Wi-Fi hotspots” and “R&D budgets at local universities” all qualified. We grouped each indicator into one of six broad categories: Transportation, Connected Citizens, Medical, Jobs, Education and Energy.

When analyzing all of that raw data, we weighted each of the indicators based on their relative level of importance. We summed those weighted indicators in each category to get the Category Score, 1 through 100. To reach an overall High-Tech Score for each city, we weighted each of the individual Category Scores, added them together, and converted those results to a 1â€100 scale.

Don’t see your city in our list? Cities for which sufficient data were not available and those with populations of less than 25,000 were not included.

RANK	CITY	STATE	SCORE (OUT OF 100)
1	Minneapolis/St. Paul	MN	100
2	Atlanta	GA	98
3	Washington	DC	96
4	Boston/Cambridge	MA	95
5	San Diego	CA	93
6	Chicago	IL	92
7	Columbus	OH	90
8	Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill	NC	87
9	Seattle/Bellevue/Everett	WA	87
10	Houston	TX	86
11	San Francisco	CA	83
12	Burlington	VT	83
13	Albuquerque	NM	83
14	Denver	CO	82
15	Philadelphia	PA	81
16	Sacramento	CA	78
17	San Jose	CA	78
18	Oakland	CA	78
19	Rochester	NY	78
20	Providence	RI	78
21	Santa Barbara	CA	77
22	Kansas City	KS/MO	77
23	Salt Lake City	UT	76
24	Boulder	CO	76
25	Portland	OR	75
26	Tucson	AZ	75
27	Dallas/Ft. Worth	TX	73
28	Louisville	KY	73
29	Los Angeles	CA	72
30	Gainesville	FL	72
31	Milwaukee	WI	71
32	Ann Arbor	MI	71
33	San Antonio	TX	71
34	Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater	FL	71
35	St. Louis	MO	71
36	Baltimore	MD	70
37	Phoenix	AZ	70
38	Cincinnati	OH	70
39	New York	NY	70
40	Charleston	SC	69
41	Albany	NY	69
42	Madison	WI	69
43	Jacksonville	FL	69
44	Spokane	WA	69
45	Omaha	NE	69
46	Indianapolis	IN	69
47	Honolulu	HI	69
48	Huntsville	AL	69
49	Newark	NJ	69
50	Orlando	FL	68
51	Syracuse	NY	68
52	Boise City	ID	68
53	Austin	TX	68
54	Santa Fe	NM	68
55	Detroit	MI	68
56	Miami	FL	67
57	Hartford	CT	67
58	Portland	ME	66
59	Pittsburgh	PA	65
60	Asheville	NC	65
61	West Palm Beach/Boca Raton	FL	65
62	New Haven	CT	65
63	Reno	NV	65
64	Bellingham	WA	64
65	Fort Collins	CO	64
66	Oklahoma City	OK	64
67	Greensboro/Winston-Salem	NC	64
68	Des Moines	IA	63
69	Memphis	TN	62
70	Orange	CA	62
71	Birmingham	AL	62
72	Cleveland	OH	62
73	Greenville	SC	62
74	Lansing	MI	61
75	Springfield	MO	60
76	Fort Lauderdale	FL	60
77	Lowell	MA	60
78	Las Vegas	NV	60
79	Cedar Rapids	IA	60
80	Tallahassee	FL	60
81	El Paso	TX	59
82	Fort Myers	FL	59
83	Nashua	NH	59
84	Colorado Springs	CO	59
85	Fresno	CA	59
86	Danbury	CT	58
87	Nashville	TN	58
88	South Bend	IN	57
89	New Orleans	LA	57
90	Charlotte	NC	57
91	Richmond	VA	57
92	Waco	TX	56
93	Dayton/Springfield	OH	56
94	Harrisburg	PA	56
95	Anchorage	AK	56
96	Peoria	IL	56
97	Melbourne	FL	56
98	Norfolk/Virgina Beach	VA	56
99	Wichita	KS	56
100	Provo/Orem	UT	56
101	Toledo	OH	56
102	Olympia	WA	55
103	Stamford	CT	55
104	Knoxville	TN	55
105	Grand Rapids	MI	54
106	Buffalo	NY	53
107	Bridgeport	CT	52
108	Tulsa	OK	52
109	Roanoke	VA	52
110	Topeka	KS	52
111	Kalamazoo	MI	52
112	Spartanburg	SC	52
113	New London	CT	51
114	Pensacola	FL	51
115	Ocala	FL	51
116	Newburgh	NY	51
117	Lexington	KY	50
118	Mobile	AL	47
119	Flint	MI	46
120	Ventura	CA	45
121	York	PA	44
122	Hackensack	NJ	44
123	Lake Charles	LA	44
124	Lancaster	PA	43
125	Scranton	PA	43
126	Clarksville	TN	42
127	Poughkeepsie	NY	41
	Mean		66