Regional Development Archives - Startup Economist

The Entrepreneurship in Texas Biosciences

Wednesday, 15 April 2026 by Paul O'Brien

On the heels of my return from Phoenix Biosciences Core and a talk about the Arizona startup ecosystem, Texas announces ARPA-H funding, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health supporting transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs. It didn’t luck into it with a last-minute pitch deck and a prayer. Four major cities put aside their egos, formed

Published in Biosciences, healthcare, Regional Development, Texas Startups

11 Comments

Phoenix Not Copying Silicon Valley is the Winning Lesson

Monday, 13 April 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Ninety percent of startups fail, and the standard response from the startup industry encouragement because we “learn from failure.” The work I do in legislative affairs and ecosystem development is oriented precisely to improving that number, and a recent trip to Phoenix reminded me that the cities doing interesting things are not the ones trying

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Published in Regional Development

22 Comments

Baltimore Is Not Waiting for Permission to Be a Startup City

Monday, 06 April 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Samuel Morse’s first telegraph message, sent from Washington to Baltimore’s Mount Clare Station in 1844, asked, “What hath God wrought?” Nearly two centuries later, Baltimore is still wroughting. The city gave us the first commercial railroad, the first dental school, the bottle cap, the Linotype machine, rubber surgical gloves, and the national anthem has now

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Published in Regional Development

1 Comment

The Texas Aerospace Space

Friday, 20 February 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Synonymous with space, Texas is far more than Houston being informed of a problem, and after an incredible tour of Firefly’s rocket facilities in Briggs, Texas, with Space Force Association, I needed to dig in. Texas got into aerospace the way Texas gets into anything: by building a messy, expensive, politically complicated machine that becomes

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Published in Aerospace, Regional Development

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Florida, Miami Startups, the Startup Ecosystem: Innovation, Invention, and Building Sustainable Entrepreneurial Capacity

Tuesday, 17 February 2026 by Paul O'Brien

Miami, known for its beaches and nightlife, is far more than the art deco and the party destination rightfully earned wherein you’ll find something that feels like a real startup ecosystem: vibrant, international, and increasingly respected on global rankings. This is the story of how Miami and Florida evolved from a tourism-centric economy into a dynamic

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Published in Regional Development

18 Comments

New York’s Sector Machines, Explained: The Real Drivers of Startup Economic Power

Wednesday, 11 February 2026 by Paul O'Brien

I’ve found that one of the strengths and distinctions of New York City, from which we might all learn for our own local economy, is that it doesn’t have an ecosystem the way people say it at conferences, like it’s a single organism. A couple weeks ago, we explored here that New York is what

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Published in Regional Development

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New York Isn’t a Startup Ecosystem, It’s a Set of Sector Machines

Friday, 30 January 2026 by Paul O'Brien

With such a substantial and dense population, it’s difficult to say that New York City has a startup ecosystem as though a monolithic slice of the economy and yet, it’s precisely because of New York’s urban density that it’s a leading example of an advanced startup community. New York is a rotating set of sector-specific

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Published in Regional Development

10 Comments