Step aside New York and L.A., The Atlantic’s CityLab finds that not all design jobs have these two trendy hotspots as their epicenters.
CityLab Editor at Large Richard Florida worked together with occupational data provided by the labor market data and research firm EMSI to identify geographic clusters of the design sector – architects and landscape architects; commercial and industrial designers, graphic designers, fashion designers, interior designer, and others. His analysis included both designers working for firms and self-employed freelancers.
Around 625,000 Americans are employed in the design sector, a decline of about 12,000 since the Great Recession.
The analyst zoomed into specific metro areas (those with more than a million people) and mapped out the number of workers in the design sector, median wages and regional share of designers for the largest 51 U.S. metros.
Florida developed a stat named the location quotient (LQ), which measures the concentration of a given occupation in a metro area to its concentration across the country. Hence, an LQ of 1 indicates the occupation’s share matches the national average, an LQ of 2 is double that, and so on.
Though the concentration of fashion designers expectedly falls on New York first and L.A. second, Florida’s findings indicate four clusters of design fields concentrated in a city other than those two, and here they are:
Detroit – Commercial and Industrial Designers
Commercial and industrial designers that design manufactured products like cars, toys and appliances are centered in the rust belt, with Detroit’s LQ leading at 5.7.
Seattle – Architects
With an LQ of 2.42, Seattle was far above New York, which came in tenth, and Los Angeles, which came in twentieth.
Minneapolis – Graphic Designers
The Twin Cities tops the list of graphic designers with an LQ of 1.7., which Florida thinks is “driven by its long-standing strength as a center for marketing and advertising.”
San Francisco – Self-employed Designers
It’s only natural that San Francisco, the hub of start-ups, would also invite a lot of independent, self-employed designers of all fields. With an LQ of 2.06, the City by the Bay is ahead of Los Angeles and New York, with tech hubs San Jose, San Diego and Austin between them.
Visit CityLab to learn more and view maps of the United States with bubbles showing the concentration of workers in the design sector.
Related Stories
| Feb 4, 2011
President Obama: 20% improvement in energy efficiency will save $40 billion
President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative, announced February 3, 2011, aims to achieve a 20% improvement in energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 2020, improvements that will save American businesses $40 billion a year.
| Jan 31, 2011
Cuningham Group Architecture launches Healthcare studio with Lee Brennan
International design firm Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A. (Cuningham Group) has announced the arrival of Lee Brennan, AIA, as Principal and Leader of its new Healthcare studio. Brennan comes to Cuningham Group with over 30 years of professional experience, 22 of those years in healthcare, encompassing all aspects of project delivery, from strategic planning and programming through design and construction. The firm’s new Healthcare studio will enhance Cuningham Group’s expertise in leisure and entertainment, education, mixed-use/housing and workplace environments.
| Jan 31, 2011
HDR Architecture Releases Evidence-based Design Videos
As a follow-up to its book Evidence-based Design for Healthcare Facilities, HDR Architecture, Inc. has released three video case studies that highlight evidence-based design principles in action.
| Jan 31, 2011
CISCA releases White Paper on Acoustics in Healthcare Environments
The Ceilings & Interior Systems Construction Association (CISCA) has released an extensive white paper “Acoustics in Healthcare Environments” for architects, interior designers, and other design professionals who work to improve healthcare settings for all users. This white paper serves as a comprehensive introduction to the acoustical issues commonly confronted on healthcare projects and howbest to address those.
| Jan 28, 2011
Firestone Building Products Unveils FirestoneRoof Mobile Web App
Firestone Building Products Company unveiled FirestoneRoof, a first-of-its-kind free mobile web app. The FirestoneRoof mobile web app enables customers to instantly connect with Firestone commercial roofing experts and is designed to make it easier for building owners, facility managers, roofing consultants and others charged with maintaining commercial roofing systems to get the support they need, when they need it.
| Jan 27, 2011
Perkins Eastman's report on senior housing signals a changing market
Top international design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman is pleased to announce that the Perkins Eastman Research Collaborative recently completed the “Design for Aging Review 10 Insights and Innovations: The State of Senior Housing” study for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The results of the comprehensive study reflect the changing demands and emerging concepts that are re-shaping today’s senior living industry.
| Jan 25, 2011
Bloomberg launches NYC Urban Tech Innovation Center
To promote the development and commercialization of green building technologies in New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has launched the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center. This initiative will connect academic institutions conducting underlying research, companies creating the associated products, and building owners who will use those technologies.
| Jan 25, 2011
Top 10 rules of green project finance
Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to fund building projects—sustainable or otherwise—has been close to impossible. Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that 2011 will be a year to buy back into the real estate market.
| Jan 25, 2011
Chicago invented the skyscraper; can it pioneer sustainable-energy strategies as well?
Chicago’s skyline has always been a source of pride. And while few new buildings are currently going up, building owners have developed a plan to capitalize on the latest advances: Smart-grid technologies that will convert the city’s iconic skyline into what backers call a “virtual green generator” by retrofitting high-rise buildings and the existing electrical grid to a new hyper-connected intelligent-communications backbone.