Cortex Recognized Amongst Nation’s Strongest Innovation Districts In Bush Institute Report

The George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative released a report demonstrating that America’s innovation districts – compact urban areas where knowledge-generating institutions and leading-edge companies cluster together to stimulate creativity, collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurship – are growing and delivering significant economic development and opportunity in their immediate surrounding areas.  

This report presents new data on the performance of America’s urban innovation districts as economic development engines, updating data reported in a previous analysis based on 2020 data. This new information shows that these districts are delivering significant economic benefits for surrounding neighborhoods, measured by prosperity metrics, such as population growth, incomes, commuting times, and housing development.  

Districts that stand out for their strong performance on prosperity metrics include the following: 

• Cortex Innovation District (St. Louis, Mo.) 
• Kendall Square (Cambridge, Mass.) 
• Pittsburgh Innovation District (Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
• Research Triangle Park (Raleigh-Durham, N.C.) 
• South Lake Union (Seattle, Wash.) 
• Tech Square (Atlanta, Ga.) 
• uCity Square (Philadelphia, Pa.) 
• University of Utah Research Park (Salt Lake City, Utah) 

Additionally, the data shows that neighborhoods surrounding innovation districts are also experiencing considerably greater housing price pressures than they saw in the 2010s, reflecting rapid growth in housing demand.