High-tech startups lay it on thick in Triangle.

• Position: Triangle

Not all startups are created equal. According to Bloomberg.com, high-tech businesses in the U.S. between one and five years old created 16,700 jobs in 2011. Other types lost 513,700. The sector's value becomes more apparent considering that high-tech is 23% more likely to have a business formation than the private sector as a whole. Unsurprisingly, Raleigh has a higher density of such startups than any other metropolitan statistical area in North Carolina, according to a new study by entrepreneur-advocacy groups Engine and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. But while its location quotient--an economic measure in which 1 equals the U.S. average--stayed roughly the same between 1990 and 2010, Durham-Chapel Hill has gone from below the U.S. average to nearly the equal of its Triangle neighbor.

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9 Apex's rank on Money's list of the best 50 small towns in the U.S. The magazine noted residential--housing permits were up 60% in the--first quarter compared with 2012.

"With that bit out of The Guardian on NSA collecting phone records of Verizon customers--everyone thought...