C&EN's Cities of Chemistry

Via C&EN, I love this feature!: 

For any career, a network is everything. For chemists, that network is highly specialized. You need laboratory space. You need coworkers and mentors with certain skill sets. And you need institutions. Depending on how you’d like your career to unfold, those institutions can include academic centers, big industrial companies, start-up accelerators and incubators, and venture capital firms.

These institutions are all around the US and all around the globe. As it turns out, in an increasingly digital world, geography still matters.

Different cities and regions play host to different kinds of chemistry ecosystems. Houston, long the stronghold of the petrochemical industry, is now establishing itself as the geographic cornerstone of the US energy transition. Boston may not house the headquarters of top US pharmaceutical companies, but it commands the most chemistry-related venture capital investment and the third-highest chemistry article output, reflecting its status as a life sciences hub spanning start-ups, academia, and research hospitals.

C&EN has evaluated the features that make a city, state, or country ripe for building a career in chemistry. Using a mix of public and private data, we’ve created interactive tools so you can see what regions are dominant as research centers, chemical industry hubs, and start-up havens—ultimately, whatever matters most to you.

Check it out, especially the commercial lab real estate ranking - fascinating.