CHICAGO—High-tech firms have played an increasingly important role in the US office market, but boom times also bring rising costs, and both start-ups and major players have started hunting for spaces beyond the well-known hubs like Silicon Valley. Chicago-based JLL has just completed a national search which aims to help solve the problem. Its researchers sought out “hidden gems” of the tech world, metro areas that provide high concentrations of talent, but remain far more affordable than the top markets.
“It's been one of the fastest growing industries over the course of the cycle,” Julia Georgules, vice president and director of research for JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. “Tech has really exploded,” largely due to the 2007 introduction of the iPhone, along with the growth of social media, e-commerce and cloud-based information storage.
But even with all that expansion, the nation still has only about one million software developers, a fraction of the numbers involved in sectors like finance, making it more difficult to find clusters of workers.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
