(2012-02-17) Tech Friendly States

An evaluation of which states are tech-friendly. (Um, actually, it's most tech-intense, which doesn't necessarily point at Red Tape/tax issues, though it may be a flag...) The NSF combed through the most recent Census data, which was collected in 2008, and classified industries as "high-tech" if they employed twice the average number of scientists, engineers, and technicians. It's a wide net that captures 45 sectors total, including heavy machinery manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, software design, and oil and gas extraction, just to give you a sense of the variety. So, we're not just talking about states full of Facebook app designers... On that score, Dela Ware, home to chemicals manufacturer Du Pont, leads the nation. As depicted on the map above, it's part of a mid-Atlantic tech-corridor, including Virginia, Mary Land and Washington DC, where science and engineering play an outsized role in the regional economy. (DC would have topped the rankings, but because it's not a state, and is such a different type of economy, I've omitted it.) And before you ask, no, government labs aren't included in the figures. Although having Uncle Sam around hasn't hurt its development into a tech mecha, the region now has a dense network of private firms.

New York State is in 3rd quartile, argh. But that may be about size. Take Florida and New York, which have the third and fourth highest totals of high-tech establishments, but also large, diversified economies that are less tech-reliant than those of a small state like Utah.