What makes a city prepared to prosper in the future? According to a new study from two collaborating tech companies, there are several key factors that signal a city’s potential for success — and San Antonio excels in, well, none of them.
The study, conducted by consulting company Human Change and advising agency Motivf, is an in-depth index called the “Geography of Prosperity” that measures and ranks 250 U.S. cities on “their structural readiness to thrive in the decades ahead.” It was unveiled by company representatives during this year’s SXSW festival.
To work out the rankings, researchers scored each city across five key metrics, including climate resilience, automation and AI readiness, population renewal, social cohesion, as well as governance and foresight. San Antonio ranked 151st out of 250, failing to earn anything higher than a D- letter grade in each category. Here’s how the Alamo City fared across each metric.
The study ranked several other cities in Texas, including Austin, which landed in 30th place, as well as the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metroplex, which ranked in 87th place. The Denton-Lewisville area weighed in at 103, while the Houston area ranked 124th. College Station ranked just ahead of San Antonio, in 150th place.
Bradley Schurman, co-creator of the “Prosperity” index, stated that San Antonio’s score was “a hard number to sit with,” noting: “The drag comes mostly from Governance & Foresight and Social Cohesion.”
Previous Express-News reporting revealed that the city still struggles with a past steeped in segregation, especially when it comes to education. Schurman chided the city as “A place that appears to prioritize short-term wins over long-term investment — and remains deeply economically segregated,” suggesting that it “isn’t well-positioned for what’s coming.”
He did mention, however, that the city’s position could be improved by prioritizing “Minor, sustained changes (that) can produce outsized results over time.”
“San Antonio has assets,” he said. “The question is whether its leaders are willing to make 20- and 30-year bets instead of ribbon-cutting plays.”