London Brain Drain

London is dying at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: London's domestic migration patterns prove that brain drain is a positive economic indicator.

Subject Article: "Over 250,000 Londoners left capital for other parts of the UK in a year."

Other Links: 1. "Redefining 'Rust Belt': An Exchange of Strategies by the Cities of Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia."
2. "Creative New York: From arts organizations to ad agencies, New York’s vast creative sector is one of the city’s most important, and least understood, economic assets."

Postscript: At the conference I attended in Baltimore, there were two demographic presentations that prompted me to speak up about brain drain concerns. Mark Goldstein worked through the population and migration data. One conclusion, "Stemming domestic out migration is key." With that overview covered, Seema Iyer worked through the neighborhood metrics. To be fair, population change is a standard measure. But correlating that change with other metrics of neighborhood health can lead to erroneous conclusions. Per the London example, net outmigration might gloss over a strong neighborhood with good schools. That part of the city may not be well known, so few people move there. That doesn't mean the neighborhood is distressed. Baltimore could be overlooking healthy neighborhoods because of the focus on retention.