Study Says Massachusetts Best State For Technology

Anonymous Coward writes "The Milken Institute (site is cnn/msnbc/wapo dotted it seems) has released a study claiming MA is the best state for technology while Texas has dropped to 26th. I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this. It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space. I just don't see (in my job hunting) very many start-up or expansion in the states they list at the top. Lots more at Google News." Reader footh adds a link to a PDF of the results.

Comments

The complete rankings

[Anonymous Coward]

State Rank(2004) Rank(2002) Rank Change Score(2004)
Massachusetts MA 1 1 0 84.35
California CA 2 3 1 78.86
Colorado CO 3 2 -1 78.77
Maryland MD 4 4 0 78.19
Virginia VA 5 5 0 72.27
Washington WA 6 6 0 69.87
New Jersey NJ 7 7 0 69.03
Minnesota MN 8 10 2 67.49
Utah UT 9 9 0 66.49
Connecticut CT 10 8 -2 66.26
Rhode Island RI 11 21 10 64.01
New Hampshire NH 12 13 1 63.43
Delaware DE 13 11 -2 62.51
New Mexico NM 14 20 6 61.75
New York NY 15 12 -3 60.66
Pennslyvania PA 16 16 0 60.36
Arizona AZ 17 18 1 58.47
Georgia GA 18 15 -3 58.10
Oregon OR 19 23 4 57.76
North Carolina NC 20 17 -3 57.28
Illinois IL 21 19 -2 56.59
Vermont VT 22 31 9 56.00
Texas TX 23 14 -9 54.91
Ohio OH 24 27 3 54.18
Michigan MI 25 24 -1 54.01
Kansas KS 26 22 -4 53.12
Wisconsin WI 27 25 -2 51.76
Nebraska NE 28 32 4 50.91
Indiana IN 29 30 1 50.73
Idaho ID 30 26 -4 49.03
Missouri MO 31 28 -3 48.11
Florida FL 32 29 -3 44.47
Maine ME 33 36 3 43.47
Tennessee TN 34 40 6 42.77
Oklahoma OK 35 37 2 42.65
Alabama AL 36 33 -3 42.36
Iowa IA 37 35 -2 41.90
Montana MT 38 34 -4 40.65
Hawaii HI 39 43 4 40.05
Alaska AK 40 39 -1 39.91
Wyoming WY 41 38 -3 38.72
Louisiana LA 42 44 2 36.66
Nevada NV 43 42 -1 36.09
South Carolina SC 44 41 -3 35.94
North Dakota ND 45 45 0 34.55
West Virginia WV 46 48 2 33.65
South Dakota SD 47 47 0 33.31
Kentucky KY 48 46 -2 32.61
Arkansas AR 49 50 1 29.53
Mississippi MS 50 49 -1 27.48
State Average 52.64

Background on Milken Institute Founder

[bcolflesh]

Yes - it's that Michael Milken - the securities fraud guy.

There's FAR more to Massachusetts than just Boston

[bkrrrrr]

I lived in Massachusetts for 8 years and only set foot in the boston metro area 5 times. Boston isn't everything. Backwoods New England is VERY purty.

Open space?

[overshoot]

I've interviewed in Austin, but can't really comment. As far as Arizona is concerned, however, I'm a native.

When you say "Arizona" for technology, you actually mean "Metro Phoenix." In the Phoenix area you certainly have plenty of "space" mostly occupied by roads and red tile roofs: my commute is over 25 miles one way, with an average rush-hour time of 40 minutes by freeway. I live in the north Valley (far-north Phoenix) compared to the "East Valley" where the orifice is. Mass-transit consists of two busses and a transfer, net time about two hours one-way (not counting a half-hour walk to the bus stop in 110F weather.)

Despite the north/east thing, I have a shorter commute than several cow-orkers who live in the East Valley because (a) they actually live farther out, and (b) the east-west rush hour traffic through Tempe, Chandler, Mesa, and Gilbert crawls on a good day.

Technology employment used to consist of Motorola, now it's Intel that employs more engineers than everyone else combined. They sack 10% of their staff every year.

Education consists of Arizona State University, with 60,000 students who all commute and haven't any other schools to choose from: ASU knows that and treats them as nothing but revenue sources. The only requirement for tenure is hitting your quota of grant money. This might matter more if students ever saw a professor, but they have better things to do, like fill out grant applications.

Oh, and the only "open spaces" any of us see are when SR101 takes us past the Salt River Reservation (cotton fields, whiteflies that gum up your windshield) or SR202 takes us along the (dry) Salt River bed. Otherwise, it's a pretty fair drive to get out of town.

Don't forget those 110F summer days; it was 97F yesterday (late March). I happen to love the heat, but partly because I grew up here and partly because it keeps the riffraff locked up in air-conditioned denial. Yes, you can see mountains when the air clears. Just don't kid yourself that you'll be able to live in those "open spaces" and still work for Intel; even Craig Barrett has to fly to Montana for that.

Re:"best" depends

[randyest]

Psst: the Big Dig ended.

I know MA taxes are higher than, say FL, where I grew up. But I'm afraid the "Taxachussetts" moniker may be more mythical than you realize.

MA: 5% income tax, 5% sales tax
CA: 9.30% income tax, 6% sales tax

Like I said in another post, it may have something to do with "Taxifornia" sounding so odd :)

But, to each his own -- I don't put much faith or stock in this study, but I know I'm happy (and very gainfully employed, with lots of local oppotunities should I want to change jobs) in MA.

Uh

[e_pluribus_funk]

"The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry."

That's because you are stupid.

Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does.

Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games.

The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).

Re:Uh

[aquishix]

The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry." That's because you are stupid. Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does. Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games. The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).

I liked your post until I saw what I quoted in bold-faced type. Rice is in fact NOT a member of the Ivy League. Goddamnit, people, look up your facts before you call someone *else* stupid. Here are the 8 Ivy League schools, in no particular fcsking order.

Harvard
Dartmouth
Cornell
Pennsylvania
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Princeton

Don't argue with me if you don't believe this -- just read the fucking history. The term "Ivy League" has been distorted from it's original(and still valid, in the right circles) meaning. I say this partially because I go to Dartmouth. I'm not a snob, though -- I think that there are several non-Ivy League schools that are better than Dartmouth...MIT, Berkeley, and Rice come to mind. I think all three of those(maybe only two, I can't remember) are ranked higher in Mathematics, which is my area.

~jared

Re:Colorado

[robertjw]

Can't reference your stats for you, but I can tell you that there isn't Jack for jobs here.

Denver (tech center) and CO Springs have some jobs right now, but they are few and far between. Longmont, Fort Collins, Greeley, etc... are absolutely dead. There aren't any tech jobs here right now at all. Not sure how we were number 2 last year and number 3 this year.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Good point

[zorn]

I bet if you looked behind the numbers, you'd find Texas dropped solely due to the HP/Compaq "merger" (Capellas was an idiot, and Carly brillian on that one).
But, Adolph, because you asked, there are several good schools in Texas. Yes, certainly, UT-Austin, which is strong in almost any area you choose, but also Texas A&M is no slouch, especially for agrigcultural technology (don't laugh - people gotta eat). Rice University is also a nationally recognized school (including it's computer science program). Baylor and UT both have excellent law schools with very high bar passage rates. Still, all that aside, MIT, Harvard, and UMass are some power hitters that do pretty much put Massachusetts at the top of any list.

Some other comments here had asked what good was Texas for producing doctors: Houston is a major hub for medicine. Undergraduates from all over the world (literally) flock to Baylor University for its pre-med school program. You really can't beat Baylor College of Medicine (not affiliated with Baylor University or the Baylor Healthcare System) and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is world class for cancer treatment and research. Some people complain about public schools in Texas, but as a product of that system, I'd say they do pretty well especially since Texas has had a lot of immigration in the past two decades or so.

As for high-tech, Austin, Dallas, and Houston are all three very heavy in technology type businesses. IBM has labs in New York (Watson), California (Almaden), and Texas (Austin). (I guess MA is close enough to New York not to get its own.) I think, overall, Tech is #1 or #2 industry in the state. In Austin (800,000+ people in the city proper), when I worked at IBM (99), I believe the largest non-government employers in the city were Dell, IBM, and Motorola. Dallas is home to EDS, and of course, Johnson Space Center is just outside of Houston.

In the area of trade, Texas is important, too. It was the number one exporter of all 50 states in 2002 and 2003 (source here).
I could go on, but I think you get the idea...