A Gap in College Graduates Leaves Some Cities Behind
2nd June 2012
Dayton sits on one side of a growing divide among American cities, in which a small number of metro areas vacuum up a large number of college graduates, and the rest struggle to keep those they have.
The winners are metro areas like Raleigh, N.C., San Francisco and Stamford, Conn., where more than 40 percent of the adult residents have college degrees. The Raleigh area has a booming technology sector and several major research universities; San Francisco has been a magnet for college graduates for decades; and metropolitan Stamford draws highly educated workers from white-collar professions in New York like finance.
Quelle surprise. The kind of jobs that require a college education are the kinds of jobs that exist in cities, and the more citified amenities a city can provide the better college graduates like it. There’s a reason that kids move to New York City and Los Angeles, even though those cities are economic behavioral sinks. Nobody thinks you’re cool if you say you live in Dayton.