Raleigh is, of course, part of North Carolina’s Research Triangle. It’s a software hub that doesn’t get as much attention as such top-tier tech centers as Silicon Valley, Boston or Seattle.
But as Scott Andes, an analyst for the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said, “It’s certainly in the neighborhood with the Austins of the world.” (The Texas capital was at the top of MarketWatch’s best-cities list in 2013.)
The North Carolina city is also a center for medical-instrument production as well as for other industries and is buoyed by a robust infrastructure, Andes said. Its relatively compact size gives it room for growth. It’s also resilient, he said: “They’ve actually grown since the recession.”