BOSTON, Massachusetts
Population: 645,966
Unemployment: 4.3 percent
Fortune 500 Companies: 2
America’s first global city, 19th century Boston, the “Athens of America,” was the seat of American intellectualism and letters. It remains a hub of higher education with more than 100 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston area, attracting more than 250,000 students, many from foreign countries. Today, those students are as likely to make their name in innovation and technology—Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both went to college here. And then dropped out.