- San Diego is the greenest city in the U.S. (Wallethub, 2022)
- San Diego International Airport runs on 100 percent carbon free renewable electricity (SAN, 2022)
- Illumina among first in the world to receive approval of net-zero GHG emissions target (Illumina, 2022)
- SDG&E makes “World Changing Ideas” list for emissions reduction tool (Fast Company, 2022)
- San Diego is home to 3,200 cleantech companies; ranked second in the nation in solar installations per capita and total solar installations with 351 megawatts of installed solar capacity (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- San Diego is the fourth most sustainable city in the U.S. (Rocket Homes, 2021)
- San Diego’s cleantech sector supports more than 45,000 jobs and has an economic impact of $8 billion (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- The San Diego region ranks second in the nation for solar installations and fourth in the nation for cleantech leadership (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- The San Diego region has 53,000 electric vehicles on the road (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- San Diego is home to 11,306 jobs in the solar industry (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- Low carbon economy is a $3 billion industry, generated 10,000+ jobs in recent years
- San Diego region ranks ninth as a U.S. Cleantech Innovation Hub (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- San Diego’s cleantech sector supports nearly 40,000 jobs, has an economic impact of $8.2 billion (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- San Diego became the largest American city to pursue a clean energy community choice program (Cleantech San Diego, 2021)
- The San Diego region is a Smart Cities Readiness Challenge award winner (Smart Cities Council, 2019)
- In 2014, San Diego International Airport became the world’s first LEED Platinum commercial terminal (San Diego International Airport)
- San Diego International Airport is the nation’s busiest single runway airport, generating more than $12 billion in annual economic impact and supporting more than 7,000 jobs. (SAN, 2022)
- San Diego International Airport (SAN) is the fourteenth best large airport in the U.S. (Forbes, 2022)
- San Diego International Airport achieves highest rating by airport carbon accreditation program (Aviation Pros, 2022)
- San Diego/Tijuana named World Design Capital 2024, the first binational region to be awarded the distinction (World Design Organization, 2021)
- San Diego County offers a combined population of more than 7.1 million people, a 27,000 square mile footprint, two international airports, and the busiest land port of entry in the western hemisphere (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- The U.S. is the largest exporter of services in the world, and San Diego is a top 10 services exporter among U.S. metros (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- $3.5 billion in foreign investment into San Diego in 2020 (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- $22 billion in total exports from San Diego in 2020 (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- $46 billion in total imports to San Diego in 2020 (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- Seven international ports of entry (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- Home to two international airports, including world’s first cross-border airport terminal (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- The cybersecurity cluster accounts for more than 24,000 jobs, including 12,400 cyber-specific roles, and a total economic impact of $3.5 billion annually (San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence, 2021)
- Cybersecurity remote job postings made up 9.3 percent of all local cyber job openings in April, up from 3.3 percent in September 2019 (Securing the Future: AI and San Diego’s Cyber Cluster, 2021)
- Productivity in the Cyber cluster has grown 7.5 percent since 2018, nearly triple the average for all San Diego industries, thanks to the development and adoption of AI (Securing the Future: AI and San Diego’s Cyber Cluster, 2021)
- In 2020 alone, the U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Systems Command set aside $7.1 billion for private-industry Cyber and AI contracts, $1.6 billion of which was specifically for the San Diego region. That $1.6 billion is equal to 46 percent of the total economic contributions of San Diego’s Cyber cluster (Securing the Future: AI and San Diego’s Cyber Cluster, 2021)
- Cyber-specific employment has grown 7.4 percent since 2018 (Cybersecurity in the San Diego Region, 2021)
- The San Diego region’s colleges and universities offer a collective 118 degree-track programs for occupations employing Cyber professionals (Cybersecurity in the San Diego Region, 2021)
- Nearly half of regional cybersecurity companies are doing business internationally (Cybersecurity in the San Diego Region, 2021)
- San Diego hosts the largest concentration of military assets in the world. (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- The military injected $35 billion in direct spending into San Diego’s economy in fiscal year 2021, including $18.5 billion in contracts to more than 1,700 local companies (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- Defense spending in the San Diego region produces 349,000 jobs (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- Military-related spending in San Diego County grew by 5.4% in 2021 and continues to be a significant driver of the local economy (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- In San Diego County, nearly 350,000 jobs can be attributed to the defense industry at large (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- For every dollar the government spends on defense in San Diego, $1.56 is added to the local economy (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- San Diego-area defense contractors received $18.5 billion in contracts during the 2021 fiscal year (San Diego Military Advisory Council, 2021)
- Roughly 60,000 IT professionals call San Diego home, representing just more than four percent of total regional employment (San Diego Cyber Center of Excellence, 2021)
- $118,900 average annual pay, one of the highest paying employment sectors in the region (Qualcomm’s Contribution to San Diego’s Economy, 2019)
- Qualcomm, the largest smartphone chipmaker in the world, has an economic impact of $4 billion annually and 10,030 local workers (Qualcomm’s Contribution to San Diego’s Economy, 2019)
- Qualcomm employs roughly 12 percent of the region’s total tech talent (Qualcomm’s Contribution to San Diego’s Economy, 2019)
- San Diego is the third largest life sciences cluster in the U.S. (JLL, 2022)
- San Diego ranks fifth in the U.S. for life sciences research talent (CBRE, 2022)
- San Diego life sciences firms captured nearly three-quarters of the estimated $3 billion in foreign investment injected into the regional economy in 2020 (Go Global: San Diego’s Trade and Investment Initiative, 2021)
- San Diego is third in the U.S. for life sciences and biotech jobs (Biospace, 2021)
- Life Sciences firms in San Diego produce nearly 178,000 jobs with total earnings of $16 billion annually (Biocom, 2021)
- Life sciences activity in San Diego County accounts for $27.7 billion in gross regional product and $47.8 billion in total business sales annually (Biocom, 2020)
- LunaDNA named among the top 10 most innovative social good companies of 2020 for its work with DNA and genome sequencing (Fast Company, 2020)
- The aerospace industry in the San Diego region has an annual economic impact of nearly $30 billion (EMSI, 2021)
- In North County alone, the aerospace cluster generates 13,800 total jobs and an average of $1.6 billion in wages annually (EMSI, 2021)
- The industry has an annual economic impact of $1.8 billion in North County San Diego, taking into account direct, indirect, and induced effects (EMSI, 2021)
- Barry Sharpless of La Jolla’s Scripps Research wins second Nobel Prize in chemistry (San Diego Union Tribune, 2022)
- UC San Diego houses the ninth-largest collection of highly cited researchers in the world according to Britain’s Clarivate study (San Diego Union Tribune, 2021)
- Scripps Research’s Ardem Patapoutian was awarded the Nobel Prize for helping discover how humans sense temperature and touch (San Diego Union Tribune, 2021)
- San Diego ranks nineteenth in leadings science cities (Nature Index, 2021)
- UC San Diego:
– Ranks sixth nationally in research spending, ahead of Harvard, UCLA and Stanford (National Science Foundation, 2021)
– Will generate $18.8 billion in annual economic impact for the state of California by 2023 (Tripp Umbach, 2021)
– Conducts $1.2 billion in sponsored research (Tripp Umbach, 2021)
– Ranks ninth among top biomedical research institutions in the world (Nature Index, 2019)
- San Diego is the third best city in the country for startups (Crowdfund Capital Advisors, 2022)
- San Diego ranks as one of the most innovative cities in America (Fabricator, 2022)
- Four San Diego startups (Drata, ClickUp, Vuori, and Equip) make LinkedIn’s “Top Startups 2022: The 50 U.S. companies on the rise” (LinkedIn, 2022)
- County startups raised more than $9 billion in 2021 (Connect, 2022)
- San Diego selected as an inclusive innovation hub (California Office of the Small Business Advocate, 2022)
- San Diego secured record-breaking venture capital investment in 2021, outpacing 2020 by more than $2.6 billion (Connect, 2021)
- Local companies raised $8.94 billion privately in 2021, with 26 of the 273 companies being $100 million-plus fundings (Connect, 2021)
- 195 San Diego startups were acquired in 2021 (Connect, 2021)
- 22 San Diego companies went public in 2021 (Connect, 2021)
- San Diego County startups received $3.47 billion in venture funding in 2019, with Biotech and Pharmaceutical startups taking 43% of the funding. (Connect Report, 2020)
- Ranked fourth in U.S. for thriving small businesses and startups (GoBankingRates, 2019)
- Barrio Logan neighborhood ranked #6 coolest neighborhood in the world (TimeOUT, 2022)
- Ranked one of the best cities in the world (Worlds Best Cities, 2022)
- San Marcos ranked #20 in Best Places to Live for Families (Fortune, 2022)
- San Diego Padres make 2022 playoffs (CBS8, 2022)
- San Diego Wave make 2022 playoffs (CBS8, 2022)
- San Diego Loyal make 2022 playoffs (CBS8, 2022)
- World champion skaters flocked to San Diego as the X-Games returned to North County (ESPN, 2022)
- Snapdragon Stadium opened at SDSU West (CBS8, 2022)
- Padres Petco Park rank #1 MLB stadium (USA Today, 2022)
- Port of San Diego named world’s best cruise port (Global Traveler USA, 2022)
- San Diego is the #1 most fun place to live in the U.S. (U.S. News & World Report, 2021)
- San Diego is among the top three best cities for recreation in the U.S. (Wallet Hub, 2021)
- San Diego ranked one of the top three healthiest cities in the U.S. (Advisory Board, 2020)
- San Diego names top U.S. metro for growth in tech talent (LinkedIn News, 2022)
- 157 of 273 private funding rounds for San Diego companies were tech or consumer companies (Connect, 2021)
- San Diego ranks as the fifth best city to start a tech career (Learn to code with me, 2021)
- San Diego is among the top ten U.S. tech markets, thanks to its employment in technology industries, educated workforce and millennial population, and venture capital investment in the region (Cushman & Wakefield, 2020)
- Software startups made up more than 61 percent of San Diego County’s new innovation startup companies established in 2019, making San Diego County fifth among California counties for software startups (Connect, 2020)
- San Diego is one of the best cities for job growth (MoneyGeek, 2022)
- Southwestern College:
– First winners of the Corbin Gwaltney Award for Best All-Around Student Newspaper (Society of Professional Journalists, 2022) - San Diego State University:
– #8 international business program in the U.S. (U.S. News & World Report, 2022)
– Ranks 6th for most inclusive college for LGBTQ+ students (Business Insider, 2022)
– Ranks nationwide for ethnic diversity (U.S. News and World Report, 2021) - UC San Diego:
– #1 undergraduate bioinformatics/biotechnology program (U.S. News & World Report, 2022)
– #3 best public college (Forbes, 2022)
– Ranked among top 20 universities in the world (U.S. News and World Report, 2022)
– #8 best public university in the U.S. (U.S. News and World Report, 2022)
– Top 10 post-grad business schools in the U.S. (U.S. News and World Report, 2021)
– #22 best career services in the U.S. (Princeton Review, 2022)
- Miramar College:
– Top 20% of community colleges in California for: Least expensive tuition, diversity in U.S. community colleges, highest graduate earnings, least debt for graduates (Community College Review, 2021) - MiraCosta College:
– Automotive Technology Program accredited by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (MiraCosta College, 2021)
– Only community college in California to offer a craft brewing certificate program that meets the standards set by Master Brewers Association of the Americas (MiraCosta College, 2022) - University of San Diego:
– Named one of the top law programs in the country (U.S. News & World Report, 2022)
– #9 best college campus in the U.S. (Niche, 2021)
– #9 best Catholic college in the U.S. (Niche, 2021) - Cal State San Marcos:
– Ranks 1st nationally out of more than 1,400 schools for social mobility (Social Mobility Index, 2022)
– Ranks 39th in the economic mobility index (Third Way, 2022)
– #1 in the U.S. for social mobility (CollegeNET, 2022)
– Top veteran friendly school (U.S. Veterans Magazine, 2022)
- San Diego scores a perfect 100 on laws, policies, and services that support LGBTQ people on the HRC evaluation (HRC.org, 2022)
- Qualcomm named thirteenth best employer for diversity (Forbes, 2022)
- SDG&E sets supplier diversity record (Stockhouse, 2022)
- Booz Allen Hamilton named
– Third best employer for diversity (Forbes, 2022)
– Top 30 best places to work for women (Forbes, 2022) - Illumina named:
– Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Talent (Corporate Equality Index, 2022)
– Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (Bloomberg, 2021)
– America’s Most JUST Company for Workers in Pharma/Biotech (Forbes, 2021)
- San Diego is the sixth best city in the country for women in STEM (CommercialCafe, 2021)
- San Diego, Oceanside, Chula Vista are three of the “Best Cities for LGBTQ Inclusion” (Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Municipal Equality Index, 2021)
- San Diego’s Chula Vista became the first city in California to be designated as a Certified Welcoming City by Welcoming America (Certified Welcoming, 2021)
- Chula Vista ranked #1 in the country for immigrants (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2020)