How much of a "company town" is your city -- and is that good or bad?

[Crawford]

Seattle is almost as tech-oriented as Bay Area these days, no? I mean MSFT is world's most valuable company and MSFT is spending more than anyone on AI. AI is a gigantic investment gusher. And MSFT and AMZN are two of the big four. Bay Area is certainly more important for tech but relative to size not sure there's a big diff.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by edale

Your comment about 'actors and camera guys' revealed that you might not know much about the entertainment industry. It's not just actors, directors, and camera guys who are employed by the entertainment industry. The big studios are just like any other corporation, meaning they employ countless people who aren't on the creative side of things, but allow the business to function, such as accountants, HR and payroll people, marketing and advertising teams, secretaries, legal, PR, etc.

Beyond these more corporate roles, there are tons of people who work on sets doing things like set design, hair and makeup, costume design, video editing, sound tech. I work across the street from a catering company that makes the vast majority of their money from providing craft services to sets, and when production stopped due to the strikes, they were hurting bad so they pivoted and opened a little storefront cafe. There's an immense ripple effect from the entertainment industry, and it probably is a more significant than ripple effect from most other industries.

Lastly, I think people sometimes view the entertainment industry as just being film and TV, but there's much more to it. Of course there's also the music industry, which is largely headquartered in LA, but also things like video games and VR, which LA has become a huge hub of too. All of these things are part of the wider entertainment industry.

Yes, and I'm surprised the sum total of this is as high as ChatGPT thinks. (Craigs already posted details about what might be included.)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Seattle is almost as tech-oriented as Bay Area these days, no? I mean MSFT is world's most valuable company and MSFT is spending more than anyone on AI. AI is a gigantic investment gusher. And MSFT and AMZN are two of the big four. Bay Area is certainly more important for tech but relative to size not sure there's a big diff.

Aviation still has a huge presence, it seems. It doesn't seem quite as lopsided as the Bay Area.

[mhays]

Boeing employs 60,000 in the Seattle area, or whatever the latest gyration is (wild swings historically, including with recent problems). But nothing like 1970 when the job market was half(?) the size and they went from, iirc, well over 100,000 to about 39,000 all at once.

Other aviation/space jobs are also significant. Most satellites are either built in Seattle (Starlink, Kuiper) or involve Seattle-based companies. Also Boeing suppliers.

I'm not looking at stats, but on a per capita basis we're probably not far off the greater SF area, minus a big chunk of the start-up ecosystem. Seattle is half the size, and has maybe half of the weight of established companies.

[pj3000]

All cities are "company towns", but actual company towns... founded, designed, built by a company... there are tons, but these off the top of my head:

- Lawrence Park, PA -- General Electric
- Ambridge, PA -- American Bridge
- Ford City, PA -- PPG
- Windber, PA -- Berwind-White Coal
- Apollo, PA & Vandergrift, PA -- Apollo Iron & Steel
- Hershey, PA -- Hershey
- Wilmerding, PA -- Westinghouse
- Natrona, PA --Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing
- Weirton, WV -- Weirton Steel
- Pullman, IL -- Pullman

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Here's my unscientific categorization of the 30 largest metros into strong, weak, or industry agnostic. Strong means a slowdown in a specific sector would be very damaging to the local economy (the types of places that would catch the flu if the industry caught a cold). Weak means a slowdown in a particular industry would be a drag, but there is the presence of another sector to take up some of the slack. Agnostic means there doesn't seem to be a dominant sector where an industry slowdown would have outsized effect (or I just don't know enough about the city to put it in another category).

Strong
Houston
Washington
San Francisco
Detroit
Orlando
Charlotte
Austin
Las Vegas

Weak
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Dallas
Boston
Seattle

Agnostic
Atlanta
Philadelphia
Miami
Phoenix
Minneapolis
Tampa
San Diego
Denver
Baltimore
St. Louis
San Antonio
Portland
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
Cincinnati

Hard to say for some - for example, you categorize NY and Dallas as weak but I believe both have 15-20% of their employment base in financial services, so a crash in that sector would impact them despite their diverse businesses. I would say they are moderate. Miami is outsized international and real estate, so crashes in those areas would impact them, it is probably moderate. But the strong cities are probably right except for perhaps Austin because I believe their dominant industries are 30% or more of their employment base. I think Austin is more moderate since I would guess it has a big government and educational sector in addition to the tech sector.

It's probably interesting how some cities may shift from super strong to less strong, like Houston which I read was 80% dependent on energy in the 1980s or DC which is much less dependent on government (but still highly dependent) or from some that may have shifted from strong to moderate ( I would say Austin fits because it now has a much bigger tech sector along with the government and education), etc.

[TWAK]

I'm in an unincorporated area so the county functions as my city just about.
Big Wine is moving in since there's water here during drought years and Napa was really hit hard by running low on groundwater. Big wine brings in money from the Bay Area and now they are building new golf courses up here as well (huge waste???).
As long as suburban housewives are drinking wine and it can be at least somewhat wet here during dry years, it should be ok. It's also an ancient product, but there's a big negative and that's the runoff causing Algae blooms in the lake.
The other "company" is Native American Casinos, which there are several. The Tribes put in a lot of extra work like building roads and having programs to deal with issues for the lake (invasive carp, invasive aquatic plants, ect).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Hard to say for some - for example, you categorize NY and Dallas as weak but I believe both have 15-20% of their employment base in financial services, so a crash in that sector would impact them despite their diverse businesses. I would say they are moderate. Miami is outsized international and real estate, so crashes in those areas would impact them, it is probably moderate.

I probably should've labeled the mid-category as "moderate". I originally started with two categories then added a third, hence the naming convention. I agree with you, though. NYC would absolutely feel turbulence in the financial industry, but it's not singly-reliant on it like Vegas and Orlando are to tourism, SF to tech, or Detroit to domestic autos.

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Here's my unscientific categorization of the 30 largest metros into strong, weak, or industry agnostic. Strong means a slowdown in a specific sector would be very damaging to the local economy (the types of places that would catch the flu if the industry caught a cold). Weak means a slowdown in a particular industry would be a drag, but there is the presence of another sector to take up some of the slack. Agnostic means there doesn't seem to be a dominant sector where an industry slowdown would have outsized effect (or I just don't know enough about the city to put it in another category).

Strong
Houston
Washington
San Francisco
Detroit
Orlando
Charlotte
Austin
Las Vegas

Weak
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Dallas
Boston
Seattle

Agnostic
Atlanta
Philadelphia
Miami
Phoenix
Minneapolis
Tampa
San Diego
Denver
Baltimore
St. Louis
San Antonio
Portland
Pittsburgh
Sacramento
Cincinnati

interesting list, but curious about a couple of the weak options - new york, chicago, boston? what differentiates these from the rest of the agnostic list? (actually i suppose all in the weak list - i thought all of these were fairly diverse)

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I probably should've labeled the mid-category as "moderate". I originally started with two categories then added a third, hence the naming convention. I agree with you, though. NYC would absolutely feel turbulence in the financial industry, but it's not singly-reliant on it like Vegas and Orlando are to tourism, SF to tech, or Detroit to domestic autos.

I'm not sure I would describe SF as singly reliant on tech. It's definitely highly reliant on tech, but it was an economic powerhouse even before tech really exploded. It's also strong in tourism, finance, industry/manufacturing, agriculture/wine, biotech/healthcare, and education. There's also some defense/aerospace and research (NASA Ames and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) as well. The Port of Oakland is the 5th largest container shipping port in the US.

[mhays]

Oakland was the #9 US container port in 2022 according to https://www.ajot.com/premium/ajot-to...american-ports

Sorry, nitpicky SSP thing.

In fairness, some like NY/NJ, Sea/Tac, and Georgia appear to aggregate multiple ports (bigger numbers) while others separate neighboring ports like LA and LB (more big locations on the list). I don't think any version gets them to #5 though.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by mhays

Oakland was the #9 US container port in 2022 according to https://www.ajot.com/premium/ajot-to...american-ports

Sorry, nitpicky SSP thing.

In fairness, some like NY/NJ, Sea/Tac, and Georgia appear to aggregate multiple ports (bigger numbers) while others separate neighboring ports like LA and LB (more big locations on the list). I don't think any version gets them to #5 though.

I think you're right according to this. The #5 ranking is probably from a few years ago. Regardless, I think the point remains that SF's economy is more diverse than most people think. Heavy in tech, yes, but not solely reliant.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

founded, designed, built by a company... there are tons, but these off the top of my head:

- Lawrence Park, PA -- General Electric
- Ambridge, PA -- American Bridge
- Ford City, PA -- PPG
- Windber, PA -- Berwind-White Coal
- Apollo, PA & Vandergrift, PA -- Apollo Iron & Steel
- Hershey, PA -- Hershey
- Wilmerding, PA -- Westinghouse
- Natrona, PA --Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing
- Weirton, WV -- Weirton Steel
- Pullman, IL -- Pullman

As recently discussed in the rust belt thread, Gary, IN is one of the ultimate examples of a city built by a single company (US Steel). There was nothing there before Gary Steel Works. No town, no village, probably some farms sprinkled among the wilderness, but otherwise nothing.

From a population of zero in 1905, then the steel mill opened in 1906, and by 1930 it had a population of 100K.

From sand dunes and farms to a city of 100,000 people in just 25 years, all built upon the largest steel mill the world had ever seen up to that point. The mill was the town, and the town was the mill. One entity.

[mhays]

Agreed Homebucket, and I don't think any city of that size would be more than medium-high.

But tech, like finance, is a funny thing...between salaries and other compensation like stock options, the result can wildly out of proportion vs being dominated by $60-90k jobs at Boeing, an oil company, or a carmaker (or whatever their ranges are). And it would be extremely different from a place built on low-income tourism jobs.

[Steely Dan]

As for the strong/weak/agnostic list, I think some actual data would be helpful instead of just impressions.

Anyone have MSA labor force by industry data handy? Might be interesting to see if any large MSAs are wildly out of proportion with national averages in certain industries.

[mhays]

Yes, to a point. Here's the BEA website. Click on "interactive tables".

https://www.bea.gov/data/employment/...nd-other-areas

[mhays]

The BEA data really doesn't isolate tech well, and also has a lot of gaps in their data. The "information" category seems to overlap tech more than the others.

Seattle's MSA was nearly $47 billion in payroll under "information" in 2022 out of nearly $372 for all employment. San Francisco was over $56 out of nearly $557. San Jose was $46 out of $274.

PS, LA had $32 in the "motion picture and sound recording industry" and "broadcasting, non-internet" industry combined out of $984 total. This makes more sense than the 6% figure.

[edale]

Originally Posted by mhays

Oakland was the #9 US container port in 2022 according to https://www.ajot.com/premium/ajot-to...american-ports

Sorry, nitpicky SSP thing.

In fairness, some like NY/NJ, Sea/Tac, and Georgia appear to aggregate multiple ports (bigger numbers) while others separate neighboring ports like LA and LB (more big locations on the list). I don't think any version gets them to #5 though.

Interesting data. Curious to see LA and Long Beach ports listed separately, when I've always heard they function as a single massive port. Sure looks like a single complex to me: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Po...emhk?entry=ttu

I'm also a bit surprised San Francisco doesn't have much of a port. I know Oakland's is massive and serves as the main port for the Bay Area, but you'd think there'd still be something on the SF side. In the past they had a huge navy shipyard, so I assume that side of the Bay can accommodate large ships. Maybe an example of regional cooperation rather than competition? Or perhaps SF decided they couldn't keep up with Oakland's port, so they transitioned the bayfront area to non-industrial uses.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by edale

Or perhaps SF decided they couldn't keep up with Oakland's port, so they transitioned the bayfront area to non-industrial uses.

This is the answer. Moving the region's primary shipping activity to the East Bay made sense to all stakeholders.

For one thing, Oakland had the room and the desire to continuously modernize and enlarge its port facilities, and to hook them up to multiple freeways and to direct, mainline rail connections to the north, east, and south. For another, San Francisco had neither the desire nor the room to centralize and modernize its old, scattered facilities. SF's waterfront also has more limited freeway access and a single, indirect freight rail corridor (to the south). The last major railyard was developed into the Mission Bay district over the last 15, 20 years or so. The dwindling shipping activity in SF, between Central Basin and India Basin, is insignificant in the national context.

[ocman]

San Francisco’s rep being a tech town is fairly recent and kind of inaccurate. The bay area certainly is a tech industry dominated town, so SF gets associated with that, even though it’s not silicon valley. I don’t know what SF is, but I feel it’s pretty diverse. I don’t assume anyone is working in tech when I’m in the city, and chances are they’re not. It’s a different story if you’re in Palo Alto.