No. 6: San Antonio

Although San Antonio is best-known for the ill-fated 19th-century battle at theAlamo, the city has a vibrant and rapidly growing 21st-century military- andfederal-contractor presence.The city recorded slightly more than 89,000 military and civilian contractor jobsin 2006, a figure that is expected to soar in the coming years from BaseRealignment and Closure closings elsewhere. "There is an extraordinary influx ofpeople, construction [and] new groups coming into San Antonio," said Jim Poage,president and chief executive officer of the San Antonio Technology AcceleratorInitiative, a nonprofit that helps find funding for local technology companies."Some of the last numbers I heard were [that] around 15,000 people wouldbe coming into San Antonio as a result of BRAC activity ? people with jobs," hesaid. Their families would swell that number. "We're the seventh-largest city inthe U.S., so I don't think there'll be a problem absorbing that influx."The Bureau of Economic Analysis placed 61,388 civilian and military jobs inthe area during 2005, the most recent year for which statistics were availablenationally.Central to San Antonio's military presence is the Brooke Army Medical Center.The 450-bed health care facility houses the Army's Institute of SurgicalResearch, which studies new treatments for trauma victims. The center alsoserves the area's numerous military installations, including Camp Bullis, CampStanley, Fort Sam Houston, and Lackland and Randolph Air Force bases.In October, the city broke ground on a $47 million expansion of Brooks CityBase, a major center for the study of aerospace medicine formerly called BrooksAir Force Base."This is a very military-friendly city but not one that I would characterize as amilitary city," Poage said. "We have a lot of military presence ? and no doubt it'sa huge economic driver ? but that's not the major driver of San Antonio," hesaid, citing the city's universities, AT&T's headquarters and the presence of keyunits of Lockheed Martin Corp., Pratt and Whitney Corp.