Only Tokyo, London outrank America’s best
Almost 40% of the top 100 most innovative cities in the world are in the US according to a global analysis.
In fact, the top 10 is dominated by American cities, taking four of the spots and only outranked by Tokyo and London.
San Francisco-San Jose is third with New York and Los Angeles in fourth and fifth spots respectively. Boston completes the US showing in the top 10 in 7th place. Singapore (6), Toronto (8), Paris (9), and Sydney (10) complete the top 10.
The annual Innovation Cities Index from Australian based consultancy 2thinknow helps inform decisions by major corporations with the idea that the most innovative will make more revenue, create more jobs and lead other cities as the best destinations to invest in commercial product, service or social innovation.
Major US cities that improved dramatically in the ranking included Chicago (11), Dallas-Fort Worth (13), Seattle (15), Houston (17), Austin (29), Denver (31) and Philadelphia (32) due to favorable trends and improved economic development.
"This year innovation is likely to come from large cities as usual, but we found on a population-adjusted basis many small cities are punching above their weight. It's the year of big cities with physical networks and small cities with digital networks, going global," said Christopher Hire, director of commercial data provider 2thinknow, which publishes the annual ranking.
A series of Bay Area satellite cities such as San Diego (23), Portland (41), Oakland(up 12 places to 43 off a stronger economy), Sacramento (up 21 places to 59) and Santa-Ana-Anaheim(up 37 places) reinforced their destination attractiveness to tech companies priced out of the San Francisco Bay Area in the analysis.
