Austin in the News as one of America’s Most Innovative Cities

America’s Most Innovative Cities
By Andy Greenberg, 05.24.10, 06:00 PM EDT
From www.forbes.com

A Silicon Valley city tops the list, of course. But the No. 2 hot spot may surprise you.

Turns out everything really is bigger in Texas. Including the brains.

Over the last year residents of Austin have patented inventions including a laser-guided nail clipper for dogs and cats, an electronic fishing reel system, a fertilizer that also functions as a pesticide, and a gadget that can detect explosive chemicals with microphones–along with about 2,900 other ideas, the second-most per-capita of any metro area in the U.S.

Silicon Valley still dominates the U.S. as a magnet for innovative companies and people. But in our first-ever ranking of America’s Most Innovative Cities, the “Silicon Hills” of Austin were close on the Valley’s heels.

For our ranking we started with the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. and used data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to determine number of patents per capita. Then we combined it with venture capital investment per capita from the National Venture Capital Association, along with those cities’ ratios of high-tech, science and “creative” jobs from ZoomProspector.com and Payscale.com.

Read the full article here

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