An economic development research and site consulting firm ranked Jacksonville in its 2012 list of “Industry Hotspots” in the three specializations of aerospace and defense, business support services and apparel and textile manufacturing.
AngelouEconomics, based in Austin, Texas, analyzed 36 industry groups and released reports about six of them last week.
AngelouEconomics measured the specialization areas and ranked metro Jacksonville No. 7 in aerospace and defense and in business support services and No. 9 in apparel and textile manufacturing.
“It shows the inherent advantages of doing business in Jacksonville in those sectors,” said Angelos Angelou, the principal CEO of the company.
“It’s good for marketing purposes, to be included in the collateral material and in marketing your city in those sectors in which you are ranked,” he said.
“Even if you are seventh or ninth, there are a lot of other major metro areas that didn’t make it,” he said.
Angelo said the firm analyzed the top 100 metro areas in the country. Jacksonville was measured against its population peers in the middle third, about 33, of the 100 areas.
The top 10 middle-third metro areas in the six industries ranged in population from Worchester, Mass., at just below 800,000 people, to Providence, R.I., at 1.6 million people. Jacksonville’s metro area population was listed at 1.35 million.
Jacksonville did not rank in the top 10 in the three industries of agriculture, biotechnology, and chemicals and plastics manufacturing.
AngelouEconomics said that as part of a multimonth study, it “completed a sweeping analysis of America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.”
Angelou said the remaining 30 industries’ “hot spots” would be released over the coming months.
The focus was to calculate and compare the concentration of industry groups within those industry areas.
“This allows one to better understand where and why certain industries locate where they do and the implication that this may have for the communities in which they have the strongest presence,” said the report.
AngelouEconomics said the top 100 metro areas account for about 73 percent of total U.S. gross domestic product and more than $9.5 trillion of annual economic output.
The firm said the 36 industry cluster groups were analyzed and communities were ranked based on their “location quotient” in each industry group.
“Location quotients” are a measure of industry concentration within a particular area relative to the concentration of that industry in the nation as a whole, it said.
Angelou said that 1 is the national average for every industry. An area with a quotient above 1 has a higher industry cluster than the national average and below 1 indicates a lower industry cluster.
“The presence of an industry cluster in a city shows the competitive industry for that city. It shows a good level of infrastructure and there’s an inherent advantage for that area,” he said.
Among the middle third of the nation’s top metro areas, here are the rankings of the first six industries released and Jacksonville’s ranking and quotient in three of them.
• Aerospace and defense — No. 1, Dayton, Ohio, 4.73; No. 7, Jacksonville, 1.71.
• Agriculture — No. 1, Bakersfield, Calif., 100.32.
• Apparel and textiles manufacturing — No. 1, New Haven, Conn., 3.86; No. 9, Jacksonville, 1.55.
• Biotechnology — No. 1, New Haven, Conn., 3.10.
• Business support services — No. 1, Memphis, Tenn., 1.60, No. 7, Jacksonville, 1.32.
• Chemicals and plastics manufacturing — No. 1, Baton Rouge, La., 3.89.
Looking at the first six industries, the top 10 among all 100 of the largest metro areas showed where the concentrations are highest nationwide:
• Aerospace and defense — Wichita, Kan., population of 623,061.
• Agriculture — Bakersfield, Calif., population of 839,631.
• Apparel and textiles manufacturing — Durham, N.C., population of 504,357.
• Biotechnology — Durham, N.C., population of 504,357.
• Business support services — Greenville, S.C., population of 636,986.
• Chemicals and plastics manufacturing — Akron, Ohio, population of 703,200.
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