Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
-
New
York
Phila-
delphia
Balti-
more
Megalo
polis
Boston
D.C.
U.S.
Less than high school
15.2
26.5
22
36.3
11.3
9.4
24.5
23
43.1
11.1
28.3
27.3
33.4
11.1
26.6
26.6
35.8
12.7
27.1
23.8
36.4
14.1
28.4
29
28.5
Educational
attainment
(aged 25 or
above)
High school graduate
31.1
Some college / associate
24.7
Bachelor's degree or higher
32.9
Management, business,
science, arts
39.6
40.9
46.4
50.7
44.6
41.4
36
Service
19.7
24.7
16.9
16.3
22.9
16.2
20.8
16.1
23.8
18.1
24.1
18.3
24.5
occupational
classes of
workers
Sales and office
25.4
Natural resources,
construction, maintenance
6.9
7.3
6.4
6.8
7.5
7.3
9.1
Production, transportation,
material moving
9
9.6
8
5.5
8
9.2
12.1
Source: 2011 American Community Survey, US Census Bureau
Fig. 18.6
Educational attainment and occupation by class of worker in Megalopolis in 2011 (%)
capital and its dynamic labor markets.
7
The Boston region has the highest propor-
tion (43.1 %) of its workers (aged 25 or above) with a Bachelor degree or above
among the Megalopolis metros—51 and 18 % above the National and Megalopolis
averages (Fig.
18.6
).
The biotech industry, based on genetic engineering technology, comprises small
and medium-sized research firms and recently by multinational pharmaceutical
firms, in an ambience of close interactions among small and large firms, university
researchers, and public research centers. While Saxenian (
1994
) observed that
1980s IT firms in the Boston-area IT firms lacked the culture of interactivity and
openness found in Silicon Valley, that culture seems to have taken hold in the
biotech cluster (Breznitz and Anderson
2005
).
The majority of the studies of the resurgent region of Boston often limit
themselves to a discussion of the performance of mostly fabrication sectors,
such as Military electronics, Microcomputer industry, Electronic components,
Instruments, and the Biotechnology industry (Bathelt
2001
), ignoring the larger
knowledge-intensive services.
The knowledge-intensive services in the Boston Region are: Financial services,
Professional services, Health Care Services, and Educational Services.
The Financial services sector is a large sector that is growing in the region,
utilizing highly skilled personnel and offering high wages. New York is a globally
dominant region with over 420,800 workers (13 % of the national total) with an
average wage of $168,800, an average annual wage growth rate of 7.7 % in 2004
7
Heurmann (
2009
) suggests that human capital externalities accrue predominantly to growing
firms, which benefit from sharing, matching and learning externalities arising from a large supply
of highly qualified workers in skilled labor markets.
