Albany's reinvention can be traced back to the late 1990s when a group of stakeholders, led by New York's then-governor George Pataki, came up with a proposal to revive the sleepy city and its lethargic economy by turning it into a hotbed of innovation.

Now at the center of the state's Tech Valley, Albany is a nanotech and chip-making triumph. It's home to the most advanced nanotech research facility in existence, as well as the world's second-largest semiconductor plant.

On top of that, it's also landed multibillion-dollar investments from IBM and Intel. This boom has resulted in a sharp uptick in hi-tech manufacturing jobs and a decreasing unemployment rate, which fell to a near-record low of 2.6% in 2022, down from around 5% in the early 1990s and around 7.5% in 2012.

Now take a look at America's biggest gold rushes in pictures

Then and now: US Rust Belt cities that bounced back