Seattle vs Chicago using bike friendliness to attract high tech workers

This is kind of amusing:

“In his State of the City address Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn responded to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s threat to lure Seattle’s tech jobs to his city by creating a world-class bike lane network,” reports Tom Fucoloro. “We’re going to build world-class, safe bike lanes, too, the mayor said. And we’re going to keep those jobs here.”

California’s largest city, Los Angeles, has made significant advances in promoting bike use under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, though I don’t know if he’s made bike facilities any kind of centerpiece of job growth.

The third largest city in California, San Jose, has also worked to improve cycling facilities though, again, I don’t think any high profile mentions have been made tying high tech job growth in Silicon Valley to the innovations in the city’s bike infrastructure. San Jose’s efforts have been led by a handful of activist city council members such as Sam Liccardo, along with the city DOT’s new director Hans Larsen, who has aggressively pushed his staff for more bike projects since his appointment in 2011.

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