Five cities account for 90% of high-tech job growth; Seattle is one

A vast majority of all job growth in high-tech industries is concentrated in just five metro areas, a new report finds. Seattle, of course, ranks among them.

But the report warns of the consequences of having such a large percentage of high-tech job growth in so few places and makes a case for more purposefully spreading tech innovation across the country.

The study — called "The Case for Growth Centers" from the  Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation — found five metro areas, including San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, California, Boston and San Diego, accounted for 90% of growth in innovation sector jobs between 2005 and 2017. The report defined the innovation sector as including "13 of the nation’s highest-tech, highest R&D advanced industries," which includes chemical manufacturing, aerospace and software and data processing.

Those five cities also accounted for nearly one-quarter of all of the country's jobs in the innovation industry in 2017, according to the report. During that time, hundreds of other metro areas lost share.

The report said the concentration of high-tech job growth in so few metro areas creates issues including increasing regional inequality and reduced competitiveness in those areas, coupled with increased housing prices and affordability issues.

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"The result is a crisis of regional imbalance. Among the superstar metro areas, the winnertake-most dynamics of the innovation economy have led to dominance but also livability and competitiveness crises: spiraling real estate costs, traffic gridlock, and increasingly uncompetitive wage and salary costs," the report said.

"Meanwhile, in many of the 'left-behind places,' the struggle to keep up has brought stagnation and frustration. These uneven realities represent a serious productivity, competitiveness, and equity problem."

The report added it leads to a "problematic 'sorting' of workers, with college-educated workers clustering in the star cities, leaving other metro areas to make do with thinner talent reservoirs."

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The report calls for the creation of new tech hubs, saying this will help to bridge the gap and ensure jobs remain competitive. It said several other metro areas have the potential to become innovation centers and calls for the federal government to take action.

"In short, the geographic distance between the left-behind masses and the fortunate few in superstar hubs undercuts economic inclusion and contributes to national inequality," the report said.

The Seattle metro area is home to several major tech giants including Amazon and Microsoft. Over the past decade, the city has seen significant growth, coupled with rising rent and housing prices, more traffic and an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness. It frequently ranks as one of the most expensive cities in the country.

The city has grappled with how to deal with issues of affordability in the area, trying to put forth new solutions to prevent people from becoming homeless and create more affordable housing.