San Francisco Center for Economic Development

The City that knows how.” – William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States.

San Francisco is world renowned as a great place to live and visit AND is also a dynamic place for business. The City of San Francisco, and environs, has been the innovation center of countless new technologies and whole industries. The Bay Area is at the cutting edge of the worlds’ emerging knowledge-based economy and our superlative living and thriving transportation hub make us an attractive location.

In his 2001 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, Carnegie Mellon economist Richard Florida determined the correlation of economic success of cities and regions to a broad variety of statistical indices. He found that cities with the talent, technology, and tolerance were poised for long-run economic success. Florida ranked San Francisco #1 on his list. He feels the city’s scientists, engineers, university professors, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, architects – in other words its creative class-- make San Francisco a good long term investment.

San Francisco clearly has the…

Talent	Forbes #1 Ranking in Education Attainment More than 18 colleges, universities and grad schools 84.9% of residents have training beyond high school 18% have graduate degrees
Technology	Most wired city in the U.S. 78%+ residents are on-line making us the most wired city in the US Largest share of high-tech exports
Innovation	Highest density of venture capital firms in the world More than double the number of patents per employee (UC Berkeley and Stanford continue to dominate US patents.) Receives 33% of nationwide venture funding
Living	Mercer Management Consulting #1 ranking of Best Quality of Life Ranked 3rd healthiest city in world by Centrum and Bert Sperling's Best Places Ranked 5th cleanest city in US by Reader's Digest Ranked in top 5 “food and wine” cities in the World Top 10 Knowledge Worker Metros in 2006 by Expansion Management America’s Top 100 Places to Live by Relocate America.com World class arts center (Symphony, Ballet, Opera, MOMA) Unsurpassed recreational opportunities and Sports Teams
Infrastructure	11th largest airport in the U.S. 95 miles of Regional transit with 39 stations through BART 30.2% of resident use public transportation 23rd largest airport in the world

…which only attempts to measure our unique spirit and distinctiveness. Our workforce TALENT leads the nation.