Tucson
Clear skies spawned Optics Valley ($4B impact) and attracted defense—Raytheon's 13,000 workers, 70+ year presence. UA optics program is world's largest. Top 10 aerospace metro.
Tucson exists because the sky exists—or rather, because this particular patch of desert offers some of the clearest skies on Earth. The same atmospheric conditions that attracted astronomical observatories to the surrounding mountains made Tucson the unlikely birthplace of a global optics industry.
The University of Arizona founded its College of Optical Sciences in 1964 with Air Force backing, and that decision created a keystone institution that would shape the city's economy for decades. BusinessWeek coined the term "Optics Valley" in 1992 to describe the cluster of companies that had spun out of UA research. Today that industry contributes $4 billion in economic impact, with over 100 member companies producing everything from telescope mirrors to precision sensors. The James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences is the world's largest and most comprehensive optics program, with 40+ faculty and over 500 students.
Parallel to optics, Tucson built a defense manufacturing cluster through historical accident. In the early 1950s, Howard Hughes worried that his aircraft company was vulnerable to a Soviet attack on the West Coast. He moved Hughes Aircraft's weapons manufacturing to Tucson—far enough inland to survive an invasion. Raytheon acquired Hughes in 1997 and has now operated in Tucson for over 70 years, employing 13,000 workers and generating $2.6 billion in local economic impact. The company's research collaborations with UA include hypersonic wind-tunnel facilities for next-generation weapons development.
Southern Arizona's 30,000+ aerospace workers make Tucson a top-10 metro for aerospace manufacturing, with a location quotient of 10.2—meaning the industry is ten times more concentrated here than the national average. The metro population reached 1.09 million in 2024, growing solely through migration. By 2026, Tucson's bet on clear skies and precision optics will face increasing competition as other regions invest in similar capabilities—but the university-industry ecosystem it built over 60 years creates path dependence that competitors cannot easily replicate.