Key Issues: Business Development

Rated the premier knowledge economy in the nation, the Bay Area offers a unique business environment for companies whose competitiveness depends on creativity, innovation, technological leadership, and the diverse and highly trained workforce required to compete and win in today’s global markets.

While costs in the region are comparatively high, this is more than offset by its extraordinary economic productivity, which is almost double the national average. With the nation’s strongest base for basic and applied research and development, the region hosts R&D facilities from a wide range of global and national companies.

While the Bay Area is home to more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere in the country except New York, it is also home to a much larger proportion of small businesses than other metropolitan regions. This reflects its entrepreneurial culture, and the fact that young companies here can access the world’s most educated labor pool as well as the world’s largest pool of venture capital, and are supported by a highly developed financial and service infrastructure.

The region’s nine counties and more than 100 cities offer an array of location and expansion options, reflecting its diversity in housing, land availability, infrastructure, and industry concentration. The Bay Area’s three international airports, and the nation’s fourth largest container port (Oakland), provide a logistical base that ensures that its companies are among the most globally connected in the world.

• Bay Area Marketing Partnership
  An association of leading economic development organizations in the Bay Area, the Bay Area Marketing Partnership supports and supplements the efforts of the region’s city and county economic development bodies by marketing the Bay Area region to new and existing businesses and new potential investors.