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Useful Stats: Inventors per 1,000 Residents by MSA: 1980, 1990, 2000, 2005
The methods of measuring the "innovativeness" of a region take many forms, including metrics which gauge the concentration of those inventing new ideas though patents. From data made available through the Office of the University Economist at Arizona State University, one can track over time the number of patent inventors per capita by metro area.
SSTI has adapted a table made available though ASU Economist Dennis Hoffman that highlights the number of inventors per 1,000 residents in each metro and their relative rank for 357 metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. Data identified by a single year in this chart actually refers to an average value in the number of inventors over the preceding five years. According to ASU, "the geographic allocation of a patent granted is determined by the residence of the first-named inventor at the time of the grant." Looking at the most recent 2005 data that averages values over the 2001 to 2005 timeframe, the metro region of Santa Fe, NM - home to many employees from Los Alamos National Laboratory - led the country with 4.44 inventors per 1,000 residents. Rounding out the top ten metros using this metric include the MSAs centered around: SSTI's table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/070109t.htm The Office of the Economist at ASU, which provides access to the original data set, is available at: http://economist.asu.edu/analysis/data_set