How Big Is Chicago's Startup Scene? About SOMA-Sized, Actually

Long time reader and first time poster. As a Chicagoan and a huge fan of S.F., this pissed me off because of the pure lack of journalistic integrity (and logic for that matter) when putting this article together. The Chicago startup scene pales in comparison to San Francisco, everyone knows that. There is no need to go through some ridiculous and poorly executed comparison to prove it. My comment to his post on the Atlantic (edited for grammar):<p>That is hardly representative of both Chicago and San Francisco's startup scene. I am not sure which is more shocking to me, the fact that you are posting this on the Atlantic (an extremely well respected publication) or the fact that an editor approved this.<p>A. The San Francisco map doesn't even include Menlo Park, Mountain View, etc. The San Francisco startup scene is even larger than you depict. B. You don't list the San Francisco startups as you with the Chicago map. C. You just Googled the locations of a few well known Chicago startups and just plopped them on the map. Simply taking a few minutes to search you might have found 1871, a startup incubator located in Chicago's Merchandise Mart that is the home to several HUNDRED startups. <a href="http://www.1871.com/about/" rel="nofollow">http://www.1871.com/about/</a> D. The scale on the maps are not comparable. E. This is simply unintelligent and a perfect example of the poor journalism we see today.<p>In Short: Thank you for wasting five minutes of my life with your last minute-deadline submission that contributes zero value to society.

Starting a company in either of those geographic areas (Loop/River North or SOMA) is like shoveling cash into an incinerator.

The best comparison I've seen was a graphic that showed how much VC capital had been invested in various U.S. markets into tech companies in 2009. I seem to remember SF/Bay was in the $10-12b range, NYC was second in the $4-5b range. Then Boston at $3-4b, and Chicago at $3b or so....with about 45% of that being one company, Groupon.

Hmm.. I don't know that geographic size tells us anything important. Am I missing something here?

Seems like the guy who wrote this "article" is in Chicago viewing startups there and ran out of ideas to write about.<p>Or as others have pointed out, people will click on links with their current city mentioned. I am sure it would have evoked the same reaction from people in LA if they overlaid Santa Monica/Venice Beach over SOMA.