Milken Institute Ranks Philly 11th Among High Tech Areas

The Milken Institute, which recently pleased many in the Philadelphia area by ranking it second among metropolitan regions in the life sciences area, has now released its High Tech rankings. Philadelphia ranks 11th based on 2007 data, up from 13th in 2003.
I am dubious of these kinds of ranking for several reasons; the quality of the underlying data, the always debatable definition of "High Tech", and the fact that metropolitan areas such as Wilmington, Camden and Trenton are not included in the Philadelphia statistics. Actually, if you look at the data broken down by industry segment, you'll realize that Philadelphia only ranks as high as it does because of its strength in the Pharma, Medical and Aerospace segments; in most of the segments we would consider as IT-related it ranks considerably lower.
A complete PDF copy of the report, "North America's High-Tech Economy: The Geography of Knowledge-Based Industries" is available for free download after a simple registration.