San Jose is an electric vehicle "capital city"

I'm a huge advocate of electric cars, especially since I love tech gadgets and breathing air outside. I ran across the following info on a site completely unrelated to San Jose. It turns out that in 2016 we had one of the highest percentage of EV (electric vehicle) sales in the world. 10% of all cars sold in the San Jose area are pure-electric and over 15% have some sort of electrification (includes hybrids and plug-in hybrids). The percentage of EVs in new sales in San Francisco was 6% and in New York it was an embarrassing 1%.

We are also one of the 20 EV "capital cities" which make up 40% of all the EV sales in the world. This is by pure volume versus percentage, so larger cities have an obvious advantage.

To me, this makes perfect sense since we are a land of innovators and early-adopters. Tesla even opened their first "store" in San Jose (Santana Row). I remember when 1,000 people lined up there to reserve a Model 3 last year. With several new inexpensive long-range electric cars coming out in 2018, I think we will continue to be the leader in the transition to zero-emission transit.

Source: Teslarati

San Jose is the #1 Best Place for Tech Jobs

In what should come as no surprise, San Jose took the top spot again in Nerd Wallet's annual study of best cities for tech jobs. They looked at the largest 381 US metros and evaluated the percentage of jobs in tech, annual median wage for tech jobs, and gross rent. Despite having astronomical housing costs, we still came in way ahead of the competition. We have about double the number of tech jobs per capita as any other city in the top 10 and our median annual tech salary blew away every other city at the top of the list. Even SF was a distant 9th place.

Source: Nerd Wallet

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 5th Best City for Women

Sadly, gender inequality is still a current issue in the US (and most of the world). Fortunately, San Jose ranks highly when it comes to the best cities for women in the country. 24/7 Wall St. looked at multiple metrics including gender pay gaps, college attainment, life expectancy, and insurance rates for women. After computing all of these metrics, we came in 6th place. Even then, women on average are only earning 74.6% of men. San Francisco fared even better and came in at 2nd place.

Unrelated tho the article, one positive sign that things are moving in the right direction is new legislation will go into effect in California next year. For example, employers will no longer be able to ask what your salary history is during job interviews as it may bias towards paying based off the past salary and not what a new hire should be making for the role.

Source: 24/7 Wall St., thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 6th Happiest City in the US

A recent study established 15 metrics that contribute to happiness and used them to rank the largest metros in the US in terms of happiness. These metrics range from eating healthy, education, financial security, and vacation time. San Jose came in at a very respectable 6th place of all cities in the US. San Francisco ranked 17th. Boulder took the top spot followed by Santa Cruz (not surprising).

Source: National Geographic, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: SJC is the 4th fastest growing airport in terms of international travel

We went from a couple to nine international routes in what seems like no time at all. Based on international passengers, San Jose had the 4th fastest growing airport in the country between 2012 and 2016.

I would actually argue that we led the country in international growth. Reno, Austin, and Columbus were the top three and all of them had almost 0 international travel in 2012. When you take a number close to 0 and add anything to it, you are going to get a very large percentage. San Jose went from 84,000 international passengers in 2012 to 330,400 in 2016. That growth of quarter million passengers is not only far more than any other airport on the top 10, but it is greater than the rest of the top 5 combined.

SJC also had more passengers in 2012 than any other airport on the list--the larger you are the more difficult it is to grow. This makes the growth SJC has shown even more impressive.

Source: SVBJ (requires subscription)

International Passengers

San Jose has the fastest-growing economy in California

The San Jose metro continues to grow despite already having one of the most booming economies in the US (and perhaps the world). The Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy (CCSCE) released a report last month showing that our GDP--essentially how productive each worker is--increased faster than any other region in California.

We grew our local economy by 5.9% while SF grew by 5.4%, Sacramento came in at 3% and LA at 2.1%. While this is a great indicator for jobs and salaries in the area, it also will continue to put upward pressure on housing costs. Overall this is a big win and shows that we are still on an upward trajectory.

Oh, and there was also a random fun fact in the report. If the Bay Area was a country (not Califonia, but just the 9-county Bay Area), we would have the 18th largest economy in the world just behind Turkey and surpassing the Netherlands.

Source: SVBJ, CCSCE

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 2nd healthiest city in the US

San Jose ranked as the second healthiest city in the country thanks to very low rates of premature death rate, adult obesity rates, and uninsured adults. Our life expectancy is also 82.7 years, the highest in the country.

1st place went to Rochester, Minnesota while our neighbor San Francisco came in 14th place.

Source: 24/7 Wall St., Hat-tip to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: San Jose has momentum

JLL released a report earlier this year stating that the San Jose metro has the strongest "momentum" in the country when it comes to the economy and commercial real estate. Momentum is comprised of 42 factors grouped into three categories--socioeconomic momentum, commercial real estate, and the region's ability to maintain momentum over the long term. Here is a deeper breakdown:

• Socioeconomic momentum
• Gross Domestic Product
• Population
• Corporate HQs
• Foreign direct investment
• Commercial real estate
• Commercial space absorption
• Construction
• Rents
• Investment in office, retail, and hotels
• Region's ability to maintain momentum over the long term

After everything was computed, the San Jose metro was by far the leader in the report. Austin came in second and San Francisco did not even place in the top 10 (it was #21).

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: San Jose is one of the best places to live

In a U.S. News report, the largest 100 metros were analyzed to determine the best place to live in the country. The key criteria were desirability, value, job market, quality of life, and net migration. San Jose took 3rd place, behind Austin (#1) and Denver (#2). SF came in at #16.

Sources: SVBJ, U.S. News

Saturday Stats: San Jose is a "millennial magnet"

Realtor.com has put together a list of the top cities in the country millennials are most interested in moving to, and San Jose just barely squeezed into the Top 10. This is based solely on the age of people researching homes in a region, but it provides some indication that we are attracting millennials despite our reputation for being geared towards families. The writeup below is quite flattering, as it should be (Realtor.com used to be located Downtown).

San Francisco only edged us out by one slot, and Salt Lake City somehow got the gold in this list.

Source: Realtor.com

Saturday Status: Two San Jose neighborhoods made the US Top 20 in post-recession apartment growth

RentCafe has put together a list of the fastest growing apartment markets in the country post-recession. Not one, but two San Jose neighborhoods made the list. North San Jose took 3rd place with a staggering 6,814 new apartments across 11 buildings, a 74% increase. Downtown San Jose was #20 on the list with 2,663 apartments across 14 buildings.

New York City dominated the top 50, which is to be expected given they have a population of 8 million people. San Francisco neighborhoods did not start showing up until #31. To see the full list, head over to the link below.

Source: RentCafe Blog

San Jose was ranked as the most productive area in the US

This one is way to good to go in the Saturday Stat bin. According to The Brookings Institution, the San Jose Metro is the most productive in the whole country. Our economic output per employee is an epic $173,971 per year. This compares to $156,812 in Houston and $152,562 in the San Francisco metro. It is also one of the many reasons why many jobs in the Valley command such high salaries.

What is just as impressive is the rate of growth that labor productivity improved in San Jose versus every other metro in the country. Between 1978 and 2015, our average rate of growth is 2.72%. If you ask any economist, that is an insane rate of productivity growth--especially considering all of our bubbles and recessions. Constant innovation is now well ingrained in our culture and our bet on technology has certainly paid off.

Source: SJ Economy News

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the 2nd Happiest Place to Live

We have a great stat to begin the weekend. San Jose was ranked as the 2nd "happiest" place to live by WalletHub. Researchers studying the science of happiness found that a positive mental state, health, social connections, job satisfaction, and financial well-being are the foundations of happiness. Based on these metrics Fremont ended up being the happiest city in the US. San Jose was a very close second. Other Bay Area cities in the list include San Francisco at #4, Oakland at #5, and Santa Rosa in 9th place.

Source: WalletHub, thanks to Barclay Livker for sending this in!

Saturday Stats: 2016 Meta Post!

It's that time of year again to look back and see the top "Saturday Stats" of 2016. The list is yet again quite impressive. San Jose ranked as the top city for salaries, jobs, life expectancy, and economy. Even Trick-or-Treating got a shout-out this year. Below are my favorite rankings for the year.

You can also see the full list of "Saturday Stats" (including previous years) with article links over here.

Rank

Stat

Source

Year

Notes

#1	Longest Life Expectancy in the US	SVBJ	2016
#10	Best Place to Live	US News & World Report	2016	SF #9
#1	Fastest Growing Private Economies	Headlight Data	2016	SF and NY not in top 10
#2	Best City for Young Professionals	Forbes	2016	SF #1
#10	Best Place to Live	U.S. News	2016	SF #9
#3	Best Places for STEM Grads	Nerdwallet	2016	SF #6
#1	City for Jobs	Glassdoor	2016	SF #2
#2	Best City for Jobs	Forbes	2016	SF #1
#1	Top City for Small Business	CNBC	2016	NY #2, SF #3
#3	Best Metro for Entrepreneurship Growth	Kauffman	2016	SF #6
#2	Healthiest City in America	24/7 Wall St.	2016	SF #14
#3	Most Educated City in the US	WalletHub	2016	SF #7
#1	Fastest Growing Economy in the US	CNBC	2016	SF #5, NY #23
#1	Best City to Trick-or-Treat In	Zillow	2016	SF #3
#1	Best City for Web Developers	Zippia	2016	SF #5
#1	Best Performing City in the US	Milken Institute	2016	SF #3

San Jose is the #1 city for web developers

I'm sure this will surprise no one--San Jose is the top city in the US for web developers. A Zippia study looked at web developer salaries, available jobs, and cost of living to determine the best spot for a job. Despite our astronomical cost of living, San Jose still came in first with 2,930 available jobs, an average entry-level salary of $63,320 (#1), and an average salary of $107,500 (#1).

The runner up was Seattle followed by Framingham (?), Austin, and San Francisco.

Top 10 List
San Jose, CA
Seattle, WA
Framingham, MA
Austin, TX
San Francisco, CA
California, MD
Columbia, MO
Dallas, TX
Durham, NC
Atlanta, GA

Source: Zippia

San Jose is the Milken Institute's #1 pick for "Best-Performing Cities"

The San Jose metro has once again dominated a list of best-performing cities. The authors of the study mention that innovation and entrepreneurship are core to our success and that we were first in the nation when it comes to wage growth over the last five years. Note, that is wage growth. That means that in addition to having the highest wages in the US, they are also continuing to grow faster than other regions.

While it is not great to have all of our eggs in one techie basket, it is nice when that basket happens to be the hottest industry right now. San Jose accounted for 1 in 8 new tech jobs for the whole country during 2015. The average salary in the San Jose metro is $111,000. The average for the nation is $60,300.

Top 9 Cities in the Milken Study
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
Provo, UT, and Austin, TX (tie)
San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA
Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX
Raleigh, NC
Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN
Fort Collins, CO
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL
Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA

Source: SVBJ

Saturday Stats: "Wealthy" San Jose renters grew by 32% in 2015

We ranked 7th in the nation when it comes to highest growth rate for "wealthy" renters. I put wealthy in quotes because the study is using $150,000/year of household income as the definition of wealthy. If you have a family in San Jose and your income is at that level between two working adults, you probably don't consider yourself wealthy.

In any case, San Jose now has 21,000 high-income renters (15% of the total renter population in San Jose). This number is increasing much faster than high-income homeowners. I don't think that is a good thing since it likely means fewer people can afford to purchase a home in the area. To read the full report, check out the source link below.

Source: RentCafe Blog

Saturday Stats: Rents are higher near the Shark Tank

There is a sometimes controversial theory that sports venues increase property values around them. A recent RentCafe study adds some legs to the connection. Based on their analysis, rents are on average 27% higher within a 2-mile radius of NHL arenas. San Jose in particular has 18% higher rents within this radius than the rest of the city.

This is not always the case. For example, rents are a 31% less near the Oakland Coliseum based on a similar study for NFL teams (Levi's Stadium shows up as 9% higher rent). For more info, hit the source link.

Source: RentCafe

Saturday Stats: highest paying jobs in San Jose

If you though the highest salaries in San Jose were dominated by tech, the list below provided by Zippia says otherwise. Healthcare dominates the Top 10 with six of the ten highest paid jobs in San Jose. Local surgeons pull in an average of over a quarter-million dollars a year. C-level executives, internists, physicians, lawyers, and nursing instructors also break the $200k salary threshold.

One thing this list does not account for is stock options which can easily tilt the balance of total compensation towards tech. For the full "Top 100" list, head over to the source link below.

Source: Zippia

Best Cities to Trick-or-Treat 2016

As a huge fan of Halloween, I'm thrilled to see San Jose maintain its Zillow rank as the 2nd best city to Trick-or-Treat in. Each year, Zillow creates the list using population density, walk score, home values, local crime data, and age distributions. This should theoretically provide the cities where trick-or-treaters can get the most candy, in the least amount of time, with the fewest safety risks.

Philadelphia took the top spot away from San Francisco this year, which now ranks #3 right behind San Jose. This means we now have the highest ranking west of the Mississippi for the study.

Within San Jose, the top specific neighborhoods for trick-or-treating were West San Jose (new this year), Cambrian Park, Willow Glen, Almaden Valley, and the Rose Garden.

Source: Zillow