News Story
Federal Region Is Nation's Most "Tech-centric"
The Atlantic magazine's ranking of the states having the nation's most "tech-centric" economies brings new focus not to Silicon Valley or Route 128 near Boston or North Carolina's Research Triangle, but to the mid-Atlantic, where Delaware, Maryland and Virginia are ranked 1, 4 and 3 in the nation—and the article notes that, if it were a state, the District of Columbia would take the top position.
The ranking, based on National Science Foundation research, focuses on each state's percentage of business establishments that are part of a high-technology industry. The survey does not take into account the number of states' government labs, which would likely have tilted the rankings even more to the federal region.
Maryland's percentage of business establishments in high-tech industries was 10.84, ranking 4th, while both its percentage of workers in science or engineering occupations and its R&D spending as a percentage of state GDP ranked 3rd in the nation.
Published February 15, 2012
