How did PopSci find its high-tech cities, and how does your rate?
By Rena Marie Pacella Posted 03.01.2005 at 8:00 pm 0 Comments

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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



Note: Where necessary, individual cities were combined into Census Bureau-defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas

















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