Despite all the moaning and groaning about brain drain, Boston is awash in young, college-educated talent. You can find the tale of the tape for the top-100 largest U.S. metros here. Almost 40% of Boston residents aged 18-34 hold at least a bachelor's degree. Pittsburgh is 12th with 29.81% and ahead of Chicago, Seattle, and Austin.
You can sort the rankings by both percentage and absolute numbers. NYC leaps to the top with almost 1.5 million young adults with a college degree. Number 2 is LA, roughly half the number you find in New York. Pittsburgh, Austin, Portland, and Columbus are grouped together. Since people vote with their feet, Pittsburgh is cooler than the other three cities.
The absolute number of college-educated young adults is a good proxy for urban hierarchy in the Talent Economy. This cohort is the most geographically mobile and the focus of most retention initiatives. How this population changes from year-to-year would be interesting to track. Just how fast is DC closing in on Chicago?
That list just illustrates how grim the future is in California.
ReplyDelete3 - San Francisco/Oakland
4 - San Jose
41 - San Diego
46 - Los Angeles
72 - Sacramento
80 - Oxnard/Thousand Oaks
92 - Fresno
93 - Riverside/San Bernardino
97 - Modesto
98 - Stockton
100 - Bakersfield
And those numbers are even worse than they look, considering that the San Francisco/Oakland MSA is ardently anti-business and proud of it. It looks like San Jose is going to have the weight of California on its shoulders.