San Diego is no Silicon Valley — but, when it comes to its technology prowess, the city outranks some surprising metros, including New York and Los Angeles, according to a new study conducted by real-estate outfit Cushman & Wakefield.

In fact, San Diego ranks No. 9 on the firm’s first top 25 list of tech cities in the U.S., which was published Thursday.

At the top of the tech-centric market list are, as would be expected, Silicon Valley and San Francisco, respectively. They’re trailed by Washington D.C. in third.

Boston, Raleigh, Seattle, Austin and Denver also beat out San Diego, though all these cities all have something in common. Each appears to be benefiting from a Bay Area spillover effect, according to Cushman & Wakefield, meaning the high cost of living is pushing more tech workers out and in to secondary markets.


Meanwhile, New York placed 15th and Los Angeles ranked 18th on the top-25 tech cities list. The former was dragged down by a lack of available engineers, while the latter’s expansive territory and diversity of industries hurt its overall placement, according to the report’s authors.

Cushman & Wakefield looked at the top 100 metros in the U.S., constructing the top-25 tech-centric metros list based on several factors, including nearby high-profile universities, venture capital flowing to a region and an index of growth entrepreneurship.

The latter entrepreneurial growth factor, developed by Kauffman Foundation, is an index that measures three things: First, how many jobs are created by startups over a five-year time period; second, the number of startups that grew to 50 or more people after 10 years as a percent of all employers; and finally, the number of companies that have at least $2 million in revenue and have averaged 20 percent growth over the previous three years.

While San Diego is a middle-of-the-road market in most of the areas considered for the study, it does have the sixth highest growth entrepreneurship index (5.77 versus 0.32 for the U.S. on the whole), along with the sixth highest venture capital activity ($1.55 billion in 2016 per Pitchbook’s calculations).


“Those categories really pushed San Diego to its strong final ranking more than any others,” said report co-author Robert Sammons.


Business

jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin