A new study shows that Silicon Alley's claim to being the strongest tech sector outside Northern California is being challenged not only by familiar rivals like Seattle and Boston, but also surging new ones like Detroit. The Brookings Institution released a study on Tuesday that ranked the relative strength of "advanced industries"—sectors that employ STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workers in jobs like engineering, technology or applied research—to the overall local economy of the largest 100 metro areas in the U.S. According to the data, advanced industries in the metropolitan area making up New York, Newark and Jersey City have seen impressive growth, supporting 630,840 jobs in 2013 (the most among the top 100 metro areas included in the study) with a total annual output to $152.6 billion (the second highest).
