How Engineers and Scientists Cluster In the U.S. 79
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.
Re:where the jobs are (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.