December 22, 2011 – Anything Geospatial

A quick moment to thank those of you who follow us and contribute to the growing social communities that we’ve enjoyed over the past year. These social media resources have been a valuable source of content for us as well as a fantastic resource where we’ve been able to extend our reach in sharing the coolest stories, articles and more from our websites. The social layer has also been a valuable resource for complementing our efforts in promoting our friends, sponsors, partners, authors, and advertisers… indeed 2011 has been a fine year for the Social Layer. FYI, as of today, our GISuser Twitter stream now enjoys 7,212 followers, our fabulous community group page on LinkedIn has swell to a whopping 16,359 members and continues to be a fine, open resource for discussion; a GISuser facebook page is steaming along with about 2,326 Likes and is also a fine resource to share your news, tips or other GIS community tidbits. My Youtube channel has shared over 500,000 video views to the community and my Flickr Page which I’ve maintained for several years to share photos captured from around the World has thousands of photos and has also enjoyed hundreds of thousands of views and shares. I hope you enjoy these supporting resources and thanks for your encouragement and support as we’ve put plenty of effort into maintaining and growing them.

In addition to loads of effort, nursing these resources to life has been loads of fun! Finally, if you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to also check out our “sister” technology resources, all of them having their own special focus that often does touch on some great Geo tech topics and stories of interest. See our Amerisurv (land surveying and mapping), LBSzone (mobile/LBS), LiDARnews (LiDAR and Laser Scanning), and MachineControlOnline (3D GPS and machine control) – links to all found HERE

Thanks from Glenn (@gletham), GISuser co-founder & Managing Editor

This summary also appeared in my Editorial intro in our Dec 22, 2011 GISuser Today newsletter

As a former resident of Fort Collins, CO I was pleased to see these results! Some new urban research out this week via the National Ranking of Best Performing Cities include San Antonio TX, El Paso TX, and Fort Collins CO. Texas metros, led by number one San Antonio, took nine of the top 25 positions among the 200 largest metros in the 2010 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index. The Best Performing Cities index includes both long-term (five years) and short-term (one year) measurements of employment and salary growth. There are also four measurements of technology output growth, which are included because of technology’s crucial role in creating good jobs and driving regional economies.

The index ranks 379 metropolitan areas, grouped into large (population of more than 200,000) and small (population of less than 200,000) metros. The 2011 top 10 performers (with 2010 rankings) of the 200 largest metros:

1. San Antonio, TX (14)
2. El Paso, TX (9)
3. Fort Collins- Loveland, CO (50)
4. Austin-Round Rock, TX (2)
5. Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, TX (1)
6. Salt Lake City, UT (49)
7. Anchorage, AK (8)
8. Huntsville, AL (3)
9. Provo-Orem, UT (25)
10. Kennewick-Richland-Pasco WA (5)