SoCal_Pony wrote:I think there is little debate that the most important metropolitan areas in America are, in no particular order,
NYC, Boston, DC, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, SF and LA.
Maybe, maybe Miami gets included, but only because as it is our gateway to the Caribbean.
As one might expect, the group of states with the most
Fortune 500 companies pretty well mirrors that of the general population, with California
(54), New York (52) and Texas (52) completely dominating every other state. In fact, those three states house nearly one third of America’s top companies. Not only that, but the top 10 states have 64 percent of all Fortune 500 company headquarters. Most states have five or less Fortune 500 companies, and 12 states are completely left out in the cold with zero.
Texas has 3 AAU institutions – Rice, Texas A&M, and UT Austin.
California has nine – Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and USC.
New York has seven.
Since Texas has two-thirds of California’s population, one might say that Texas should have two-thirds as many AAU universities, or a total of 6 AAU universities in Texas (3 more than today)
Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami are the only Top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas without at least one AAU university, although Dallas benefits from a vibrant higher education landscape including University of North Texas, UT Dallas, UT Arlington, U of Dallas, Dallas Baptist University, Texas Christian University, Texas Woman's University and more, in addition to SMU.
Despite great success in growing jobs and attracting companies, it remains a laggard in some aspects of higher education.
Since the 1980s, local leaders have lamented that the area doesn’t have a Tier 1 research university, not by the most discriminating standard. But rival metros, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, have several members of the Association of American Universities.Among the 20 finalist cities still competing for Amazon’s next headquarters, only D-FW and Miami don’t have an AAU member nearby. And the University of Miami spent $358 million on research in 2016, over three times more than UTD.
A recent Dallas Regional Chamber report on innovation cited a “scarcity of future-forward talent” and the fact that Dallas is one of the few major metros without an AAU member. To become a hub of innovation, the region must continue to develop and recruit talent, including “international serial entrepreneurs,” the report said.
https://www.dallaschamber.org/wp-conten ... -March.pdfhttps://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/comm ... search-gap Across the country, regions are competing for top talent and big-name companies. The race to win Amazon's second headquarters, dubbed Amazon HQ2, has sparked soul-searching among civic leaders — especially in cities and states that didn't make the online retailer's top 20 list. (Dallas and Austin are the two Texas cities still in the running for HQ2.)
The study lists some of Dallas-Fort Worth's greatest strengths. It is home to 22 Fortune 500 companies and a broad base of businesses that cut across sectors. It has lots of wealth, including the wealth of 18 billionaires. And it has a vibrant restaurant, arts and culture scene and a generous philanthropic community.
But it also pointed out weaknesses, including education gaps. Dallas is one of few large cities without a university that's a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research universities.
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/tec ... tech-world An example of what a single university can mean to an economy is provided by MIT (Source: “MIT: The Impact of Innovation,” BankBoston, March 1997, available from
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/founders/). In 1994, Bank Boston estimated that MIT alumni founded more than 4,000 companies that employed 1.1 million people and that had annual gross
revenues of $232 B. To put this in perspective, in 2005 the entire DFW Metroplex (which produces one-third of the state’s economic output) had a gross domestic product of $285 B(source: “U.S. Metro Economies,” United States Conference of Mayors, 2006, available online at
http://mayors.org/ metroeconomies/0107/GMPreport.pdf), which is approximately equal to the annual revenue from companies started by MIT alumni. In other words, one great, world-class university can have an economic impact approximately equal to one of America’s largest cities.
Tier One universities attract federal research funds and top talent. By population, Texas, with 23.5 million people, constitutes 8% of the U.S. population and is second only to California, with 36 million people (12% of the U.S. population). (Source: “2007 U.S. Population Data Sheet,” Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC,
www.prb.org.) Texas’ “fair share” of the nation’s resources, based on population proportion, is thus 8%. Federal Research and Development (R&D) Funds.
In 2004, the U.S. spent $99.1 B of Federal R&D funds, including $5.0 B (5% of the total) in Texas (source: National Science Foundation,www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf07323/, Table 82, page 193). If Texas had received just its proportional share based on population (8%), it would have received an additional $2.8 B per year. Texas lost out on $2.8 B in one year alone in attracting its fair share of Federal R&D funding. By contrast, California, with 12% of the U.S. population, 9 AAU universities, and 2 of the top 3 ranked public universities in the U.S. (Table 2), garnered 18.2% of the Federal R&D budget. California attracted $6 B per year of Federal R&D funding above its proportional population share, and $13 B more than Texas. Lack of major R&D infrastructure, which is impacted negatively by lack of more Tier One universities, is costing Texas billions of dollars each year in missed opportunities to attract R&D funding.
https://senate.texas.gov/cmtes/80/c535/ ... Report.pdf