Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of Cambridge, England, the town where its founding fathers had studied (at Cambridge University). Cambridge is most famous for the two prominent universities that call it home: Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 101,355, though even more people commute into Cambridge to work.

Economy

Although manufacturing was an important part of the late ninetheeth- and early twentieth-century Cambridge economy, today long-established educational institutions are its biggest employers; Harvard employs over 10,000 people and MIT over 7,000 as of 2004. As a famous cradle of technological innovation, Cambridge has also been home to legendary technology firms, including Akamai, BBN, Lotus Development Corporation (now part of IBM), Polaroid, and Thinking Machines. Over the years, as companies have grown, prospered, and then either moved away or gone out of business (see this list of employers for more information), Cambridge's large-scale employment has shifted tremendously. In 1996, Polaroid, Arthur D. Little, and Lotus were all top employers with over 1,000 people in Cambridge, and all declined or disappeared a few years later. As of 2005, alongside Harvard and MIT, health care and biotechnology dominate the Cambridge economy, with Genzyme, Biogen Idec, and Novartis the biggest players. Biotech's geographical locus is Kendall Square and East Cambridge, the center of much of the city's manufacturing a century before. Of the computer-industry firms that once dominated the Cambridge economy, only Akamai remains a top-20 employer. However, many smaller start-ups and entrepreneurial companies remain an important part of the Cambridge employment scene.

Related Topics:
Harvard - MIT - Akamai - BBN - Lotus Development Corporation - IBM - Polaroid - Thinking Machines - Arthur D. Little - Genzyme - Biogen Idec - Novartis

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