Chicago: High-Tech Heaven?

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 20 -- Stockyards. Railroads. And silicon?

That's right, a study released this month shows Chicago, the traditional center of industrial America, having more high-tech jobs than any other metropolis in the United States. The Windy City has 347,000 such jobs, according to the survey's authors, Ann Markusen and Karen Chapple, professors of public policy at the University of Minnesota.

That places Chicago ahead of Washington, D.C., the runner-up, and some other locales better known as technology hotbeds, including San Jose, Seattle, New York and Boston.

Even Markusen says she was "surprised" to see the Second City in first place on her list. But the rankings come with a twist: the authors did not limit their survey to the popular image of high-tech jobs — chip makers, software programmers and dot-com start-ups.

Instead, Markusen and Chapple also counted technology-centered jobs within a variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, medical instruments, engineering, services and even public relations. They say doing so better reveals how many people work in positions created by high-tech developments, and makes the overall link between technology and the sustained economic growth of the 1990s more evident.

"It underscores how important diversification is in regional economies," says Markusen.

The High-Tech Top 10

'Low on Hype, Low on Changing the World'

The survey's definition of technology jobs also fits the practical-minded self-image of some people in Chicago's high-tech community.

"Chicago is low on hype, and we're low on changing the world," says Tristan Hoag, President of IQ4hire.com, an on-line business technology provider in downtown Chicago. He adds: "We've got a large pool of people that are well-trained with solid professional backgrounds … we are not burdened with the dot-com bubble mentality."

Even among start-up companies in Chicago, there seems to be a different work culture compared to Silicon Valley, traditionally considered to be the technology epicenter of the U.S.