Human capital in the digital economy is footloose, and can choose where to work, almost anywhere in the world. A great deal of it chooses San Francisco – why?
San Francisco is tech city par excellence and home to many of the top pioneering US, and therefore, global enterprises of the digital age. It vies closely with Austin, Texas to occupy second position in our Tech Cities ranking. It scores high on the ‘business environment’ and ‘Tech environment’ measures but loses to youthful Austin only on its ability to attract quite so much talent – and its real estate costs are much higher (these two factors might be related).
San Francisco is constantly competing with Silicon Valley to the south for talented tech workers but this rivalry is what our Tech Cities programme is all about. San Francisco is attracting increasing numbers of tech companies, start-ups, scale-ups and entrepreneurs despite the fact that it already accommodates nearly twice as many people per square mile than Silicon Valley to the south – and a much wider range of inhabitants. Some of this can be put down to the changing demographics in the tech industry.
