Michigan a top state for knowledge workers

The Great Lakes IT Report points to Expansion Management magazine's recent ranking of Ann Arbor the "nation's Number One metro area in terms of knowledge workers."

The magazine said its fifth annual Knowledge Worker Quotient Index focuses on the college-educated work force — scientists, engineers, medical doctors, Ph.D.s and others with graduate and postgraduate degrees — who provide the foundation for a knowledge sector economy.

The magazine also ranked Kalamazoo/Portage and Lansing/East Lansing as "five star" areas in this regard. That gives us three metro areas so-rated in the report, putting Michigan in a tie with Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas, all with three five-star metros. New York and Californa each have five, while Massachusetts and Colorado have four each. Sixty metro areas were listed in all.

According to the 'zine's KQ report, "These are the communities that will thrive and prosper in the future, and there is one common thread that runs throughout all of them: the presence of one or more major research universities."