Ingenuity

For years, creativity has been a defining feature of Rochester.  Today's artistic vitality is based in the region's impressive entrepreneurial history.  Big names such as Western Union, Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, Gannett, French's Mustard, and Champion have their roots in Rochester.  Given the downsizing and/or relocation of these iconic companies, one might expect that intellectual activity has also waned.  But at least as of five years ago, such productivity was alive and well.  Here is a list of the 20 American metro areas with the most patents per million residents as assessed using data from 2007-2011:

1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
2. Burlington, VT
3. Rochester, MN
4. Corvallis, OR
5. Boulder, CO
6. Poughkeepsie, NY
7. Ann Arbor, MI
8. San Francisco-Oakland, CA
9. Austin, TX
10. Santa Cruz, CA
11. Seattle, WA
12. Raleigh, NC
13. Rochester, NY
14. Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
15. Trenton, NJ
16. Sheboygan, WI
17. San Diego, CA
18. Albany, NY
19. Ithaca, NY
20. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN

After five and a half years of living in Upstate New York, I have realized that part of the culture is to apologize for living here and discuss when you are going to depart.  Yet interestingly, Upstate New York comprises 20% of this list.