RICHARD FLORIDA, AUG 2, 2018
… So what are we to make of the rise of the rest?
Hathaway’s data suggests something of a mixed bag. Startup financing is still massively concentrated, but some smaller places, mainly college towns and cities like Pittsburgh, are seeing some growth. A decade and a half ago, I called Pittsburgh my “base case,” suggesting that it was the one city in the Rust Belt region with the university and place-based assets that could potentially navigate the transition to the tech-based knowledge economy. Hathaway’s data bear this out.
Pittsburgh appears to be the one older industrial center that is maybe growing into a startup hub, along with the post-industrial cities of Columbus and Indianapolis and, of course, college towns. Hathaway stresses that it takes a long time for new startup hubs to develop, and city leaders and policy-makers need to be realistic about the scope, pace, and inevitability of the rise of the rest.