In his The Rise of the Creative Class Richard Florida claims that there is a positive correlation between a city's high-tech potential and ... a number of gays living there.

Almost immediately, we got to work comparing innovation and high-tech industry to the Gay Index ranking. There are several reasons why the Gay Index is a good measure for diversity. As a group, gays have been subject to a particularly high level of discrimination. Attempts by gays to integrate into the mainstream of society have met substantial opposition. To some extent, homosexuality represents the last frontier of diversity in our society, and thus a place that welcomes the gay community welcomes all kinds of people. As Gates sometimes says, gays can be said to be the "canaries of the Creative Age." For these reasons, openness to the gay community is a good indicator of the low entry barriers to human capital that are so important to spurring creativity and generating high-tech growth.

High-Tech index rank	Region	2000 Gay index Rank	Composite Diversity Index Rank
1	San Francisco	1	1
2	Boston	22	4
3	Seattle	8	8
4	Los Angeles	4	2
5	Washington, DC	11	7
6	Dallas	9	14
7	Atlanta	7	13
8	Phoenix	15	18
9	Chicago	24	15
10	Portland	20	16