Cities Outrank Suburbia in Savills Study

SAN FRANCISCO—A report from Savills World Research ranked 12 global “tech cities” on a variety of factors including real estate costs, quality of life and talent pool, with one being most favorable and 10 being least favorable. San Francisco received an overall rank of number two, just behind Austin, TX, and just ahead of Tel Aviv.

In the last industry cycle, the dotcom boom was led by senior web developers. This time around, the tech boom is not about hardware, but the younger generation of 22-year-olds founding companies, sans spouse and kids. The Savills report finds they want to live and work in San Francisco, so the technical facilities in Silicon Valley are less important now. “Cities are better attractors of human capital than out-of-town business parks; purpose-built campuses whose purpose has changed,” says the study.