Is Indianapolis Becoming the Silicon Valley of the Midwest?

[Dustin Ruhl]

Locations of high concentrations of technology workers are, more often than not, found in coastal cities such as Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston or New York and New Jersey. However, there are some places, like Indianapolis, where the standard perceptions about high tech companies are starting to become an exception to the rule as to where a high tech company might be located. Companies such as Sales force are creating jobs there, and a few companies are even moving to Indianapolis from more traditional areas like the San Francisco Bay Area. There are other Midwestern cities who are growing the high tech job sector, but their growth rate isn't as high as Indianapolis' rate. Some attribute the growth in Indianapolis to a certain loyalty factor among the workers there. Job-hopping doesn't seem to occur in Midwestern cities the way it does in other areas. And while the growth rate in Indianapolis is strong, it's not so strong as to affect employment rates in the more traditional centers of high tech industry; Silicon Valley doesn't need to worry, yet, about their workers moving en masse to Indianapolis any time soon. What Indianapolis has going for it, however, is the fact that there is a 20-year history of a group of companies located there that has served to boost the area's ability to make gains in the high tech sector. Still, areas like San Francisco enjoy the advantages that come with having a highly concentrated number of companies that are geographically dense. It will take places like Indianapolis some time to catch up in this regard.

Key Takeaways:

• Indianapolis is a rapidly developing player in the tech industry.
• Most people don't think of Indianapolis as a tech city...but they are wrong.
• Several Indiana colleges are supplying the talent needed for the tech industry.

"The Indianapolis region stands out as somewhat of an anomaly: A Brookings Institution analysis published earlier this month suggests newly created tech jobs are becoming increasingly concentrated in coastal centers and a small number of other established hubs."

Read more: http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/gov-tech-jobs-indianapolis.html

[David Faulkner]

Do you have a bunch of artists, hippies, hipsters, and otherwise rough vagabonds in Indy or recently moving in? For some reason they usually come right before the techies, then get PO'ed when the techies price them out. Happened in SF ... happened in Venice Silicon Beach, same with Portland Silicon Forest, same with Austin, etc. Follow the hippies, my friend, especially if they are congregating near a University with a decent computer science department, and get in just before the first successful tech IPO :)