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How Engineers and Scientists Cluster In the U.S.

Posted by timothy on from the you-forgot-seattle dept.

First time accepted submitter DERoss writes "The National Science Foundation has published a research paper titled Regional Concentrations of Scientists and Engineers In the United States. The lead paragraph contains the sentence 'The three most populous states — California, Texas, and New York — together accounted for more than one-fourth of all S&E employment in the United States.' According to the 2010 census, however, those three states also contain more than one-fourth (26.5%) percent of the U.S. population. In other words, there is no concentration beyond how the general population is concentrated." The clustering is studied with finer granularity than the per-state level, though, and the paper names several places (like the Santa Clara area, and Houston) where such jobs are particularly prevalent.

8 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Re:first ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, they live on Goat Island, in the middle of the Goat Sea.

  2. Re:What is the point? by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Funny

    stick around a few days and see the dupes of the worst

  3. Re:What is the point? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can someone please explain to me what the point of this is?

    The point is to give someone an excuse to post a link to the relevant xkcd.

  4. where the jobs are by confused+one · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Engineers cluster where the jobs are. So do most people. We're sort of past the question, which came first, the population or the jobs? Businesses build where they can acquire (1)people (2)space (3)economic benefits (4)access to transportation for goods. That describes most of the urban population centers (although #2 might require building in the suburbs).

    1. Re:where the jobs are by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Businesses build where they can acquire (1)people (2)space (3)economic benefits (4)access to transportation for goods.

      You forgot #5: happenstance. The best explanation for why Silicon Valley is where it is, is that Bill Shockley's mother lived there. He could have started Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories almost anywhere he wanted, and either New Jersey or SoCal would have made more sense. Seattle became a big tech hub because Gates and Allen were from there, and they missed home more than they liked New Mexico.

  5. No No! - wrong way around! by crepe-boy · · Score: 5, Funny

    The obvious conclusion is that people tend to cluster around scientists and engineers - they follow us wherever we go. Fear our Pied Piper powers!

  6. Re: What is the point? by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

    by this measure, DC, Maryland, and Virginia are a leading cluster

    It's called "pork". I frequently travel to the Rockville-Gaithersburg-Germantown corridor of Maryland on business, and I never fail to be amazed just how much STEM work is there, and in nearby areas, mostly sucking off the government teat. I know it extends well beyond STEM, but that's the part of it that's most visible to me. It's nice to know the rest of the country's tax dollars are going towards keeping the people there fat and happy, while most of the rest of the country limps along.

  7. Interactive map by webplay · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is an interactive map showing where computer and mathematical occupations are overrepresented.