OrangeCounty.net
- Premier listings for all of Orange County, California. Featuring
Orange County Businesses and Services for both residents and business
owners.
Where
do you look to find the business trends and sociological developments
that will define where the cutting edge cities of the next century
are headed? Seattle? Austin? San Jose? Not so, according to New
York Times critic Paul Goldberger who believes, "There is
no better place to think about the American landscape and what
it is turning into than in Orange County..."
Whether
you're talking about its growing dominance in high-tech industries
or its leadership in identifying and responding to a more diverse
demographic base, the County of Orange is positioned to lead much
of Southern California and the entire state, in a transition to
an information age economy. Consider that the business area around
John Wayne Airport, once noted for its strawberry fields and quiet
planned communities, is now the third largest "Downtown"
in California in terms of office space, behind only Los Angeles
and San Francisco. Consider also the the County as a whole has
the thirteenth largest number of business establishments and the
fourteenth largest consumer market in the entire nation.
Until
the 1940s, the County's economy was based largely on agriculture
but post World War II growth saw a number of aerospace industries,
like Northrop and Hughes, move here to take advantage of a burgeoning
population. The number of science-based industries multiplied
exponentially with the arrival of the University of California,
Irvine campus, in the mid-60s, until today the County has clearly
emerged as Southern California's high-tech leader with 21 of the
so-called "Fast Fifty" top companies located here.
About
1,000 high-tech businesses, including scores of computer, software,
biotechnology, and medical-device companies, are located around
the Irvine Spectrum business center at the junction of the San
Diego and Santa Ana Freeways.
The
success and growth of the Irvine Spectrum has led to the development
of the University Research Park, on the northwest corner of UC
Irvine, lauded nationwide as a major research institution, which
will accommodate another 100 high-tech companies. Total high-technology
employment in the County of Orange tops 76000 jobs, more than
regions such as Raleigh-Durham, Seattle, Austin, and San Diego.
But
what really brings strength to the region's economy is its diversity
and emphasis on thousands of smaller businesses, many minority-owned
(roughly one out of every four), that allow it to outperform the
rest of Southern California and most of the nation in more difficult
economic times. Fashion leaders like St. John Dritts, Roxy, and
Gotcha were all founded in the County of Orange. And While Detroit
may still manufacture most of the cars driven in the US, they
are often designed by subsidiaries that call the Tech Coast home.
Leaders in all fields - from fashion to music to automobiles -
look to Orange County to spot tomorrow's trends today.
Irvine, California