Concentrated Job Growth

Here is an interesting factoid from the Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal.  I think it is using data that is two years old, but I'm willing to bet that the trend is intact

The latest analysis of Census Bureau data by the Economic Innovation Group points to the increasing concentration of new business formation in a smaller number of U.S. counties. The findings show that 20 counties account for half of new businesses and that most counties had fewer business establishments in 2014 than in 2010. Even accounting for so-called dynamic counties, the total number of firms in the U.S. remains lower than it was in 2004.

Anyone care to bet that SF or San Mateo, and/or Santa Clara county are in the top 20 "dynamic" counties?  Think about it.  As of 2013, there were 3,007 counties in the U.S. and half of all new businesses started in just 20 of them.  Couple that with the fact that many of our established businesses are growing as well and you see why we have the growth stresses that we are experiencing.  Even with capable agencies we would struggle to accommodate such growth, but instead we are stuck with a bunch of agencies and leaders and some activists who neither understand the issues or the magnitude of the forces at work--not to mention basic economics.

Comments

[data]

Here's the actual 20 county list (in order 1-20) from the original report below. Looks like we (San Mateo County) didn't make the cute. I guess we are still more a bedroom community to SF and Santa Clara counties, rather than a jobs creating area.

Los Angeles County, CA
Miami-Dade County, FL
Kings County, NY (Brooklyn)
Harris County, TX
Orange County, CA
Queens County, NY
San Diego County, CA
Travis County, TX
Palm Beach County, FL
Broward County, FL
Maricopa County, AZ
Cook County, IL
Santa Clara County, CA
Collin County, TX
Orange County, FL
Tarrant County, TX
San Francisco County, CA
Clark County, NV
New York County, NY
Dallas County, TX

[hillsider]

We're probably number 21 or 22.

[Job creation vs. bucolic preservation...]

I'd like to see job creation per capita and job creation per square mile. The list above does not necessarily depict which areas are the most effective at job creation, or in Burlingame's case, which areas even want more job creation.

Burlingame fiscal golden goose are its hotels which generate $40M per year in just transient taxes, not to mention property taxes, sales taxes, jobs and their income taxes, as well as halo revenue to Burlingame restaurants and retail as a result of the hotels.

The only problems with banking on the hotel industry is that it makes Burlingame more susceptible to economic downturns, and also the vice that is nearly always connected to hotels.