Brookings Institute calls St. Louis a rising star in tech: Here’s why

The St. Louis Metro area comes out looking pretty good in a new report from the Brookings Institution, which calls attention to St. Louis and other “rising stars” that have done a solid job in recent years of adding jobs in fast-growing technology sectors.
Employment data from 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggest St. Louis, Kansas City and a handful of other rising-star metros are poised for further progress, according to Brookings researchers Mark Muro and Yang You.
THE BACKSTORY: Eight “superstar” metros mostly on the coasts (think places like Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle) have dominated job growth over the past decade in key tech sectors like software publishing, computer systems design and other information services.
Tech employment hasn’t really spread out across most areas of the U.S.; in fact, it’s become even more concentrated, the report notes.