As someone from a place in the Rust Belt that's well in the triple digits of this 150-city ranking, I think I have a little insight.
The problem isn't a lack of smart, ambitious kids. It's not bad schools. There are even multiple universities.
The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great.
We need to improve the level at which you attract/retain both educated people and well-paying jobs for them. How do we do that, given that both are at fairly low levels and it's something like a chicken-or-egg problem?
I'm asking myself, what's the problem here? The lack of bachelors degree holders working the counter at Starbucks in these cities? The time of universal University education has passed. The middle class is shrinking and has shrunk.
For example, the guy I know who opted for HVAC trade school and started his own company, he didn't get the broad university education, but he's run his own business for 20 years, working with and for people of all socioeconomic statuses and races. University isn't for everyone, this idea that it is just isn't helpful.
> The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great.
Agreed. In fact, I think the entire thing driving the data here is population flow. I grew up in #148 (Porterville) and moved to #6 (Boston) in the list for school. And most of the people I know in Boston didn't themselves grow up there.
A city could have the best education system in the world, but if it didn't have a thriving economy to keep its graduates it would still show up low on this list. On the other hand, a city with a crap education system can still hire in the best graduates of other schools if it has the jobs to draw them.
I'm not even sure what data I'd be curious to see here. I was going to say it would be interesting to look at most educated cities considering only people born and raised there. But someone living in the same place all their life is so rare anymore, I'm not sure how meaningful that would be. Maybe just looking at people who graduated college there would be cool; after you graduate you're more likely to just stick around if you can. If that's the case, I guess the takeaway would be to try to establish strong universities in every city?
As a person who's been about in those areas, I think part of the reason is the mass-delusion that education and sciences is somehow a bad thing.
Far too many common folks out in the country think that education is not worth it, science is not worth learning, healthcare and public transportation is second-class.
It shows in the way they live, the way they socialize, the way they vote. They'd rather spend money on Church than healthcare. They'd rather worry about their individual taxes than on improving schools and teaching critical thinking and sciences.
The really ambitious/educated kids realize that it is a (apologies) shit-hole and get out asap.
If you want to attract the educated to a city, it's my hunch that you should try to make the city better for everybody in the lower tiers. Improve overall wages. Improve K-12 education, which was a huge factor in where my spouse and I chose to live. Improve how women are treated.
Employers want to locate their businesses in places where they would want to live themselves. People are looking for a city where an educated, or non-educated spouse might be able to find a job. They want to live in a "nice" environment.
The problem with using MSAs for this kind of analysis is that it ignores states like New Jersey. Some parts of new Jersey are very highly educated but do not fall within an MSA.
All of NJ falls within an MSA. There are 7 that cover the state: New York, Allentown/Bethlehen, Trenton/Mercer, Philadelphia, Vineland, Atlantic City, and Ocean City/Cape May.
The Trenton MSA gets a high ranking because of Princeton and the pharma companies nearby. Where Rutgers and J&J don't affect their score as much since their MSA (NYC) is so populated.
And conversely the MSA methodology lumps uneducated areas together with educated parts. Including West Virginia in with the Washington DC MSA is crazy. Yes, some places in WV have become "bedroom communities" for DC workers, boosting their ranking, but other parts of the state are extremely poor and uneducated.
I wonder if there is a measurement for what i see in MSAs like NJ. The mix of wealthy and poor in the same town or same street even.
So many people with so much money are significantly upgrading houses or outright purchasing for their children (or huge down payment) that neighborhoods have 1.5$m homes across from $125k homes.
It used to be just about everyone in a neighborhood could afford to buy each other's house.
From a quick glance at that map, the presence of a university skews results one way (N.C. to Boston), the presence of immigrants skews it the other (I'm assuming that's the explanation for the light blue along most of the Mexico border).
Very interesting. There is a huge score gap between the first and the second. Does anybody have an inside view of what makes Ann Arbor such an exceptional place?
It's one of the smallest MSAs in the list with only 365k thousand people, which makes it much easier for it to be an outlier. They included the 150 largest MSAs in the US and Ann Arbor is the 146th largest. By comparison, number two is the sixth largest MSA with about 6 million people.
Ha! When I lived in Germany, hanging out with German friends, the topic would sometimes go to poorly educated, dumb Americans who didn't even know Luxembourg was a country. I'd counter with, do you know the capital of Idaho? The point being geography, like a lot of things, is local.
Looks like I have to register to read, on my phone anyway. I think I am tending to be a little more careful about signing up to things on a whim than I used to be.
[+] [-] csense|8 years ago|reply
The problem isn't a lack of smart, ambitious kids. It's not bad schools. There are even multiple universities.
The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great.
We need to improve the level at which you attract/retain both educated people and well-paying jobs for them. How do we do that, given that both are at fairly low levels and it's something like a chicken-or-egg problem?
[+] [-] le-mark|8 years ago|reply
For example, the guy I know who opted for HVAC trade school and started his own company, he didn't get the broad university education, but he's run his own business for 20 years, working with and for people of all socioeconomic statuses and races. University isn't for everyone, this idea that it is just isn't helpful.
[+] [-] losvedir|8 years ago|reply
Agreed. In fact, I think the entire thing driving the data here is population flow. I grew up in #148 (Porterville) and moved to #6 (Boston) in the list for school. And most of the people I know in Boston didn't themselves grow up there.
A city could have the best education system in the world, but if it didn't have a thriving economy to keep its graduates it would still show up low on this list. On the other hand, a city with a crap education system can still hire in the best graduates of other schools if it has the jobs to draw them.
I'm not even sure what data I'd be curious to see here. I was going to say it would be interesting to look at most educated cities considering only people born and raised there. But someone living in the same place all their life is so rare anymore, I'm not sure how meaningful that would be. Maybe just looking at people who graduated college there would be cool; after you graduate you're more likely to just stick around if you can. If that's the case, I guess the takeaway would be to try to establish strong universities in every city?
[+] [-] NTDF9|8 years ago|reply
Far too many common folks out in the country think that education is not worth it, science is not worth learning, healthcare and public transportation is second-class.
It shows in the way they live, the way they socialize, the way they vote. They'd rather spend money on Church than healthcare. They'd rather worry about their individual taxes than on improving schools and teaching critical thinking and sciences.
The really ambitious/educated kids realize that it is a (apologies) shit-hole and get out asap.
[+] [-] analog31|8 years ago|reply
Employers want to locate their businesses in places where they would want to live themselves. People are looking for a city where an educated, or non-educated spouse might be able to find a job. They want to live in a "nice" environment.
[+] [-] 2sk21|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmyrocks|8 years ago|reply
The Trenton MSA gets a high ranking because of Princeton and the pharma companies nearby. Where Rutgers and J&J don't affect their score as much since their MSA (NYC) is so populated.
[+] [-] jhbadger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
So many people with so much money are significantly upgrading houses or outright purchasing for their children (or huge down payment) that neighborhoods have 1.5$m homes across from $125k homes.
It used to be just about everyone in a neighborhood could afford to buy each other's house.
[+] [-] kurthr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ribfeast|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barking|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisdol|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ranit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andybak|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] le-mark|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjinwright|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flexie|8 years ago|reply
Move to McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX.
[+] [-] posterboy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardlianotion|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epmaybe|8 years ago|reply