Although our world is more interconnected than ever, it’s nonetheless wise for advisors to set up shop where potential clients are. Historically, that’s meant major metropolises like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco. However, times are changing, and a new crop of cities are positioning themselves as attractive locales for advisor operations in the future.
Real Estate analyst Point2 recently analyzed the 100 largest cities in the United States to determine which are the most future-ready. They considered 30 key metrics distributed across five categories, each shedding light on a different aspect of urban innovation: Business & Technology; Internet Connectivity; Environment & Sustainability; Transit & Mobility; and Economy & Demographics.
According to these metrics, Seattle is the most future-ready city in the country, ranking high in areas such as number of startups, invention patents, annual median income, influx of population with a bachelor’s degree and the most important metric of all: bikeability. San Jose, Denver, San Diego and Austin, Texas round out the top five.
The top 10 is dominated by cities in California—fully half, with San Francisco, Sacramento and Oakland(!) also claiming spots. Meanwhile, there are only two entries in the top 10, New York and Washington, D.C., and four in the top 20, that are east of the Mississippi River. So go west young advisor!
Here are the top 20 most future-ready large cities in the U.S.