According to Dell’s recent Future Ready Economic Model, San Jose, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston and Austin, are America’s most future-ready cities.
But what does it even mean to be the most future ready city? The more future ready a city is, the more they are prepared to handle economic growth; and there are three characteristics that the 2015 Strategic Innovation Summit identified as determinants if a city is prepared:
• The ability to attract people who are engaged in and open to lifelong learning that drives innovation.
• Businesses that thrive in collaborative environments
• Infrastructure that provides platforms for people to engage, collaborate, learn and innovate.
Education plays a big role
Dell hired IHS Economics to find proxy indicators that properly defined those characteristics, which resulted in the list. So, San Jose, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston and Austin are the top four cities that met those characteristics, and are henceforth more future-ready.
This ranking, along with 20 other cities, comes from the Dell Future Ready Economics model that was decided on at the 2015 Strategic Innovation Summit: Enabling Economies for the Future, hosted by Harvard University.
The rankings didn’t provide a formula, or formal explanation for achieving future readiness, however education is an obvious factor. The top four cities on the list, were the same cities with the highest number of undergraduate and graduate school degrees.
Location is less relevant than economies
The index also revealed that future readiness is not based on location, or having “better” economies, but instead relies on the specific strengths of a particular economy, and capitalizing on them. Louisville, which is number 18 on the list is a good example of this.
James Diffley, IHS Economics Group Managing Director for U.S. Regional Services said “For instance, Louisville was impressive. They seem to be set up to take advantage of natural advantages they have… Is Louisville going to do better than San Jose? No, but I think Louisville will get the best out of their potential.”
The 25 most “Future Ready” economies
Again, there are 25 total American cities that made the list (listed below), but Dell and HIS fully intend to release an international ranking index, in the next few months. Here are the 25 Future Ready Economies:
1. San Jose, CA
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Washington, DC
4. Boston, MA
5. Austin, TX
6. Raleigh, NC
7. Seattle, WA
8. Denver, CO
9. Portland, OR
10. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
11. New York, NY
12. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
13. Houston, TX
14. Atlanta, GA
15. Charlotte, NC
16. San Diego, CA
17. Chicago, IL
18. Louisville, KY
19. Salt Lake City, UT
20. Des Moines, IA
21. Los Angeles, CA
22. Pittsburgh, PA
23. Kansas City, MO
24. Columbus, OH
25. Philadelphia, PA
#BringItOnFuture
