So far this year the city of Cambridge, MA, is ahead of the continent of Europe.
Yup. The book "As The Future Catches You" sharply points out that nearly all patents (as one measure of the creation of new ideas) come from just a few zip codes. Some places have achieved the critical mass needed for huge intellectual output. (Unfortunately the accompanying dangerous radiation from the chain reaction includes a high acoustic and legislative intensity of morons, whineons, boreons, fruitons, nutons, and other stupid particles produced by the underlying layer of administratium.)