Philly vs. Kansas City: Who’s got the stronger tech economy?

Super Bowl LIX is coming, with a rematch of the 2023 Super Bowl, when the Philadelphia Eagles narrowly lost to the Kansas City Chiefs. 

Technical.ly was born in the heart of Eagles Country (Go Birds!), so we asked: What if, instead of football, Philly and Kansas City competed in a “Super Bowl” of economic development and innovation? 

We went to our proprietary Technical.ly Map of Innovation Ecosystems and put the two cities head to head in the six different categories used to determine the Technical.ly Innovation Index.

Overall, Philly (10.57)  has a higher Innovation Index than Kansas City (1.38), but when you look at the six individual innovation areas, it’s a much closer matchup:

The Innovation Index, explained

Technical.ly launched the Innovation Index Map in December 2024 to compare ecosystems all over the United States, using six data sets: Institutional R&D spending, ecosystem value, ease of doing business, software development employment concentration, trend in economic mobility and relative cost of living. 

The lowest Innovation Index on our map is Omaha, Nebraska, with 0.25. The highest index, by far, is San Jose, California, with 222.36.

Institutional R&D spending — winner: Philadelphia

KC: 77.2, Philly 99.8

This number is the percentile of R&D expenditure by top institutions in the region, via the National Science Foundation. While Kansas City’s 77.2% expenditure by Missouri University of Science and Technology could be worse, Philly’s expenditure is in line with the bigger innovation hubs at nearly 100%. Philly’s top institution, The University of Pennsylvania, had the third-highest R&D expenditures in 2022 and 2023.

Ecosystem Value — winner: Philadelphia

KC: 5.21, Philly: 91.6

This number refers to the total value of exits and startup valuations in the region as calculated by the Startup Genome Project in billions of US dollars. No competition here — Philly blows Kansas City out of the water when it comes to ecosystem value, as KC tops out at just over $5 billion, compared to just over $90 billion for Philly, including digital human resources platform Lluna’s acquisition by startup The Best Answer.

Ease of doing business — winner: Philadelphia

KC: 0.70. Philly: 0.89

This is the percentile ranking of the region’s primary city, as determined by the Doing Business North America study at Arizona State University. For this number, metrics include how complicated it is (or isn’t) to start a business, employee requirements, price of electricity, land use and taxes. The numbers are getting closer, but Philly still pulls ahead with .89 compared to KC’s .70. In this category, KC’s strong suit is electricity, while Philly ranks high for starting a new business and land use.

Software developer employment concentration — winner: Kansas City

KC: 1.11, Philly 0.84

Kansas City finally gets one on the board with software developer employment concentration in the region, as calculated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, squeaking past Philly in this workforce category with 1.11, compared to Philly’s .84. Software publishers — which hire the most software devs overall —  in KC include Uglig and Sprout Software; Philly is home to The Neat Company and Specops Software. 

Trend in economic mobility — winner: Kansas City

KC: 0.7, Philly: -12.7

This number is the percentile ranking of the change in income for median residents aged 27 born into poverty in 1992 versus 1978 by metro commuting zone, via Opportunity Insights at Harvard Business School. This metric shows which cities offer children in poverty the most opportunity to become a higher earner as an adult. While these incomes in Kansas City had a tiny 0.7 increase, it beat Philly’s number, which dropped into the negatives with -12.7.

Relative cost of living — winner: Kansas City

KC: 44%, Philly: 39%

This number represents the percentage lower than the top Innovation Index city San Jose, as calculated by NerdWallet. In this case, the higher number represents a lower cost of living — and Kansas City, which is 44% lower, beats out Philly (39%) by five percentage points. Everything costs less in KC, from housing to gas, groceries to healthcare.

When broken down like this, despite Philly’s clearly higher overall ranking, Philly and KC wound up in a 3 to 3 tie. Hey, we’re all for going into overtime for economic development.