The criteria the Brookings paper used to determine eligibility doesn't make sense. Specifically this bit: "Looking next at the remaining top 20 metro areas wit

The criteria the Brookings paper used to determine eligibility doesn't make sense. Specifically this bit: "Looking next at the remaining top 20 metro areas with the most innovation sector jobs, only those that saw population or real GDP growth slower than the nation as a whole since 2010 are considered eligible to become designated growth centers. By dint of that, cities such as Raleigh, N.C., Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin are set aside because they are already self-sustaining superstars. They are safe bets for any new tech graduate looking for a job or any tech firm looking at add a few hundred jobs somewhere. Allowing these places to be eligible would simply reinforce existing spatial imbalances." This decision disqualifies growing Sun Belt metros including Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta from inclusion, specifically because they are already growing. The result is a list that is biased towards metros in the northeast and midwest, which are shrinking for a variety of reasons, not strictly due to job opportunities. This has two problems: 1. It sets the program up for failure: Targeting shrinking metros means that the policy intervention needs to offset existing decline before it can demonstrate any positive growth. This is not easy! There are lots of public programs already targeting these metro areas (particularly state-level programs), and they are still shrinking. 2. It makes it very unlikely that the program would develop a new "superstar" tech city comparable to NYC, because you've already excluded the most probable candidates. Adding some regional balance for fairness and (valid) political concerns is a good idea, but a program that proposes to subsidize growth in Chicago and Minneapolis while excluding Atlanta, Dallas, and Raleigh-Durham seems neither fair nor sensible.