6. Cities are building sports stadiums, but talent wants bike paths. Business is not a spectator sport.

While professional sports are seen more and more as a way to achieve "major league" status and attract talent, our data suggests that there is little relationship between these big-ticket venues and high-tech workers. Many successful high-tech regions, notably Austin and Raleigh-Durham, have little or no professional-sports presence. The reason, I think, is that we're seeing the replacement of spectating with participating.

Knowledge workers don't want to devote an entire Sunday to watching football. These people are active. They want to participate. They don't want to stand on the sidelines. A lot of cities believe that they'll make it in the new economy if they get a professional sports team and build a downtown mall. They couldn't be more wrong.

It's almost like taking drugs away from an addict: No more stadiums. No more convention centers. What cities need to do is really simple: Make it fun. Create a music scene. Build bike lanes. Make sure that there are parks where people can play Ultimate Frisbee. Think about the city's historic assets -- the old buildings -- as cool spaces for hot companies.

Austin really gets it. Austin decided that it wanted to create a great place to work and a great place to live. So it leveraged its music scene and its independent-film community, and it launched strategies to preserve open spaces and control growth. Austin's mayor, Kirk Watson, understands that in order for the city to be successful, it has to promote a convergence between technology, Austin's music scene, and its unique, laid-back quality of life -- not one or the other.

Boulder, Colorado is another example. It didn't have a lot of new-economy resources. So it blocked off the downtown area to traffic, built a pedestrian mall, lured in a few cool retail stores, and there were people on the street. Now there's energy. The place is attractive. The small, simple things make a big difference.

Bill Breen (bbreen@fastcompany.com) is a senior editor at Fast Company. Richard Florida (florida@cmu.edu) is the author of a recent paper, "Competing in the Age of Talent: Quality of Place in the New Economy." You can find it on his Web site (www.heinz.cmu.edu/~florida).

Sidebar: On the Outskirts, in the Mix

In the battle for talent, location is critical. But how can your company compete if it's not based in a hot spot? Professor Richard Florida has identified five tactics.

1. Pay up. "People want work that's challenging, but money matters. Even college graduates won't take a differential to live in a cheaper place."
2. Outdo the competition. "Make your space the hippest one around. Your building and your environment show off who you are."
3. Take the guy with the tattoos seriously. " Top talent -- especially young recruits -- revel in their differentness. That new hire with full-on metal in his ears may be the best thing that ever happened to you. He's a visual cue that you've got an open house for talent, no matter what form it comes in."
4. Hire his boyfriend. (Or help him get a job down the street.) "Our research shows that same-sex partner benefits are intrinsically related to your company's success. It's the number-one indicator that your culture is inclusive."
5. Invade the backwaters. "Top talent isn't just found at Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford. There are plenty of great people hidden away in the backwaters."