Hi my names Jack S____ and I recently found your article when looking for a new place to live. I am 22 and I'm an inventor. Do you think Boston is the best place for a inventor and someone my age? Or do you think I should look at some other cities first?
Thank you,
Jack S____
FROM CHRISTOPHER HIRE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:
Boston is a great general choice for inventors.
Boston was #1 ranked Nexus city in the Innovation Cities Index 2010 by 2thinknow, and has been a top-ranked city since 2007 inception of the rankings.
Boston has M.I.T. if you're looking to attach to a great top-ranked free thinking university, an active start-up community, strong commercialization, supportive local government and innovation prizes. It's also in the U.S.A., globally connected via air to the rest of the world. Plenty of coffee shops and university culture, are among the reason that makes it a great start-up capital.
San Francisco / Silicon Valley must be on any list. And New York is often overlooked (although higher cost of living) for small scalable consumer inventions. Smaller U.S. cities can have favourable climates for American inventors: Austin, Raleigh-Durham, Boise, Springfield MA, and Minneapolis-St. Paul may be overlooked. See our 2010 North / South America list here That also includes Canadian cities like Toronto, which is a great choice for general innovation.
Generally regards to age, a university town like Boston or Ann Arbor is a great place for jobs to support the start-up dream. We'd have to know more about your degree, and what type of jobs you'd like to work at, for more detail there.
For Inventors: The key is which industry & community segments does a city have that matter to your type of invention. Edison did pretty well in Menlo Park, which was hardly (then) a buzz word in innovation. Trade shows and affordable conference in the city can be useful too for young inventors, so Boston / San Fran do well there.
Seeing you're a prospective inventor, Jack for your own research -- you may want to benchmark which cities on our list have easier company laws, patent laws, local manufacturing (if required) and big companies in your area to leverage your invention.
Hope that helps, Jack!
Keep innovating
Christopher Hire
Exec Dir, 2thinknow ICP
ABOUT 2thinknow CITY BENCHMARKING DATA: City Benchmarking Data from 2thinknow can provide benchmarks of all U.S. or international cities that out-perform on over 180 City Indicators from local to high-tech manufacturing, labor force, business approach, company start-up times and all the data innovators need.
We are the only company to provide actual performance data, with analysis, evidence and source URLs in Excel and Slide formats. All priced at USD $12 to $25 per indicator for each city you select so it's affordable. If you compare 2 cities or 10 cities, we can tell you which cities are best at what you need. More > http://www.citybenchmarkingdata.com
Or contact us at 2thinknow to discuss your needs.