08/28/2026
Excerpts from Bloomberg Law Opinion
"Y’all Street Won’t Mess With Wall Street"
Second-tier US cities are always pitching themselves as “the next Wall Street.” Charlotte, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa and West Palm Beach have all, at one time or another, laid claim to the Wall Street South nickname. And now Dallas is going all in on Y’all Street.
Having examined the numbers from my office here in Miami, I can confidently tell you that while the ever-booming investment business has been expanding into more diverse locales, New York will always be its home.
Manhattan alone still has five times as many high-finance workers as Dallas, Miami and Palm Beach combined, and in the last five years it added twice as much headcount as the total increase in those cities.
Finance and investing workers also earn considerably less in these locales than they do in New York.
Compare the concentration of Wall Street-type jobs by dividing them by total employment. Dividing the local concentration by the national concentration yields what economic geographers call the location quotient, where LQs greater than 1.0 indicate an industry presence that’s greater than typical.
- Manhattan has an LQ of 11.
- Dallas County: 1.33
- Miami: 1.38
- Denver: 1.98
- The other real standout continues to be Chester County, Pennsylvania, home to Vanguard Group. Its LQ: 8.6.
Despite some legitimate progress in cities like Miami and Dallas, New York will always be the home of the finance and investing business, with Manhattan having five times as many high-finance workers as Dallas, Miami, and Palm Beach combined.