In the HBO comedy “Silicon Valley,” one of the characters refers to the famed tech hub as “the cradle of innovation.” To be sure, Silicon Valley has given us the home computer, the iPhone and many other tech innovations.
Yet even some small college towns in the U.S. can lay claim to being cradles of innovation, although on a much smaller scale than Silicon Valley. Without a doubt, the built-in brainpower and resources of a university can be a catalyst for tech startups in small college towns. Not every college town graduates to the level of a mini-Silicon Valley, though.
“College towns are no longer just sleepy hamlets where learning, sports, conversation and partying prevail,” social and economic theorist Richard Florida wrote in 2011 on The Atlantic Cities website. “The rise of the idea-driven, human capital-powered knowledge economy has transformed many of them into economic powerhouses.”
So, which small college towns in the U.S. make the grade as standout tech hubs?
How We Produced This List Before we answer that question, let’s look at how we compiled the list. We relied primarily on rankings of tech hubs in a 2013 report by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, MO-based nonprofit that promotes entrepreneurship. We also considered rankings of tech hubs by Techie.com, along with other economic accolades, population trends and livability factors.
People who live in Montana and Alaska have the most state pride, according to a poll by Gallup.
In these two states, 77% of residents said their state was the best or one of the best possible states to live in.
Among the worst places to live in are Illinois, Rhode Island and Mississippi according to residents.
Residents who have a lot of state pride also "generally boast a greater standard of living, higher trust in state government, and less resentment toward the amount they pay in state taxes," according to Gallup.
The poll shows a correlation between positive attitudes and the state's location in a mountainous region with cold weather.
The bottom 10 states show a correlation between negative attitudes and state's location east of the Mississippi River or bordering it.
Most survey respondents did not say their state was the single best place to live, preferring instead to say it was "one of the best."
Texans were most likely to say their state was the very best place to live.
Gallup conducted the poll from June to December 2013 and interviewed at least 600 residents in each state.
A Montana attorney is headed for a Washington, D.C., appeals court to help argue for the American children who will have to deal with increasing climate-change effects in the future.
On May 2, Missoula lawyer Thomas Beers will join attorneys Philip Gregory of Burlingame, California, and Julia Olson of Eugene, Oregon, as they present the case of five teenagers and two nonprofit organizations – Kids vs. Global Warming and WildEarth Guardians — to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Beers said they would be asking the appeals court to order a lower D.C. court to hear their case, which was first filed in May 2011.
The lower D.C. court dismissed the case without a hearing in May 2012 at the request of the defendants, which include six federal agencies, among them the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the intervening National Association of Manufacturers.
In the HBO comedy “Silicon Valley,” one of the characters refers to the famed tech hub as “the cradle of innovation.” To be sure, Silicon Valley has given us the home computer, the iPhone and many other tech innovations.
People who live in Montana and Alaska have the most state pride, according to a poll by Gallup.
A Montana attorney is headed for a Washington, D.C., appeals court to help argue for the American children who will have to deal with increasing climate-change effects in the future.