Destin makes U.S. Geekiest List from Forbes Magazine

[Paula]

Destin/Fort Walton Beach made the list as one of the 20 geekiest cities in the U.S. (as did my hometown). Well, I think this is a good thing for SoWal because it's related to education and employability - and ideally bringing in more jobs at some point: Here's what the article says:

Geekville USA: America's 20 Geekiest Cities by Forbes Magazine

There is no standard definition of a “geek.” However, the U.S. National Science Foundation has created a compelling taxonomy of American geeks for gathering the data it includes in its annual “Science and Engineering Indicators” report.

The most recent version of that report defines “geeks” as any workers with a bachelor’s level of knowledge and education in science or engineering-related fields or workers in occupations that require some degree of technical knowledge or training.

In the “Science and Engineering Indicators 2010,” the NSF ranked the top 20 cities in the United States by percentage of workers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics occupation.

Based on the NSF’s criteria, it turns out that the densest concentrations of geeks in U.S. cities is not necessarily where you would expect, with one big exception.



Here's the link: http://news.yahoo.com/geekville-usa-americas-20-geekiest-cities-163152811.html

 

[Here4Good]

Thank the government for this ranking. 100% of those engineers work for contractors at Eglin or Hurlburt.

 

[Kurt]

Yes - there are folks trying to develop the panhandle as the "aviation coast" with Eglin and Tyndall, as well as Pensacola Naval Air Base. There is some cutting edge work going on at Eglin and quite a few contractors. No offense, but I think it really says something about our country's position in sci-tech when Fdub gets on the list. And that the primary industry is dropping bombs on people.

I would like to see a little more detail in the article. Like what's going on in each of the locations.

The most recent version of that report defines “geeks” as any workers with a bachelor’s level of knowledge and education in science or engineering-related fields or workers in occupations that require some degree of technical knowledge or training.

Also very telling that Detroit didn't make the list.

 

[beachmouse]

Our first year down here, I remember getting introduced to someone's husband at a Christmas party. He was described as having a PhD in chemical engineering but couldn't say more than that- pretty much everything he did job-wise was classified as was his doctoral dissertation.

There are also disproportionately a lot of small metros on the list- FWB, Bloomington-Normal, Kennewick-Pasco, Framington Mass ranking higher than Boston. Easier for those small metros to be 'company towns' where the major player is tech like FWB and Kennewich-Pasco, which is a nuclear energy hub, IIRC. So the percentages of tech jobs are higher there and even though Detroit has several times that number of net tech jobs as many list entries, they're not on the list because they may only make up 4% or so of the local job market.

 

[Kurt]

Gotcha!

 

[beachFool]

Things could change if we see dramatic reductions in government spending.

 

[Here4Good]

Yes, back to having the highest concentration of bartenders.