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Detroit has long been the industrial center of the automotive industry. Even with the automotive industry in decline there, over 400,000 people are employed by an automotive-related company in Greater Detroit. Triangle Park in North Carolina is one of the largest and most vibrant research parks in the world with 190 companies employing 42,000 workers and 10,000 contractors in micro-electronics, telecommunications, biotechnology, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and environmental sciences. Torrey Pines Mesa, is a hotbed of bioscience and healthcare research in San Diego, California. It is home to many of the 18 research institutions and over 500 life science companies that have made San Diego the #1 bioscience cluster in the US. Northwest Washington State’s Maritime Cluster is home to many maritime industry businesses, including cruise ship companies, commercial fishing vessels and suppliers, ship building, cargo shipping, and seafood processing. This industry cluster brings in a whopping $30 billion dollars annually and employs over 10,000 people. The Hong Kong Science and Technology Park is a Chinese government SEZ and home to 250 companies, ranging from electronics, green technology, information and communication technology, precision engineering, and biotechnology. Other industry clusters of note: London has a thriving video gaming industry cluster . Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment have studios in or near London, as does King.com, Rocksteady, Silicon Roundabout, Mind Candy, and Sports Interactive. Japan has a number of robotics industry clusters designing robots for all sorts of tasks: industrial, surgical, companionship, security, mobility, and rescue, just to name a few. Cluster Mapping The U.S. Economic Development Administration and the Harvard Business School recently teamed up to map industry clusters throughout the U.S. This is called the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project , and it is pretty interesting stuff. The map is interactive and provides all sorts of data about regional and local clusters, such as how many people are employed in a particular industry and subindustry, where new (emerging) industry clusters are developing, which clusters are showing the most or least growth, etc. The goal of the Cluster Mapping Project is to provide government policy makers, business analysts, educators, and investors with the tools and information they need to analyze how industries develop in order to strengthen U.S. global competitiveness. The data is available to anyone at clustermapping.us . The European Cluster Observatory provides the same function for the many and varied industry clusters throughout Europe. You don’t have to be an analyst or policy maker to reap the benefits of cluster maps. Use them to explore potential career paths. For example, you can check out the growth rate of any industry you are considering for a career. You can also determine the location of industry clusters of career interest to you, and select a college near a cluster of potential employers. PRODUCT PREVIEW
Lesson 8 | Commerce = the Sum of Many Parts 132
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