This is a follow-up to my recent piece in the changes in the share of younger adults aged 25-34 with college degrees. A CNN story today has related info too.
I do think it’s important not to get carried away by this. First, looking at stats like percentage of a certain age group with degrees is only one way to slice the data. If you look at just pure metro area percentage growth in younger adults with degree, it’s mostly Sunbelt sprawltowns. The top five are: Riverside-San Bernardino, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Orlando, and Austin. San Francisco is ranked 33rd out of major metro area, though starting from a high base.
All of these dimensions: raw growth, percentage growth, and share growth tell us something about what is going on. We should take a broader look.
Going back to my previous share map, some people said they were surprised that Cincinnati and St. Louis looked so good. I went and looked at it in more detail, and it is in part an artifact of low denominator (total population) growth.
Cincinnati went from 30.5% of 25-34yos with degrees in 2000 to 39.0% in 2016, an 8.5 percentage point gain. Indianapolis went from 30.6% with degrees in 2000 to 37.4% in 2016, a gain of 6.9 percentage points. So Cincinnati appears to have outperformed Indianapolis.
But if you look at those other dimension, Indianapolis grew its total number of young adults with degrees by 40.5%. Cincinnati only grew by 31.4%. Indianapolis added 30,860 young people with degrees, which is more people with degrees than Cincinnati’s 26,744. It looks like Indianapolis attracted a lot more people without degrees than Cincinnati, which dragged its percentage down.
Again, both numbers matter. Indianapolis grew its higher skilled labor force in that age bracket by more than Cincinnati did, but Indy is going to have the feel of a slightly less educated place overall.
I also got in inquiry from Crain’s Chicago about county level data for that region. I pulled it, and it looked weird. Two of major mature suburban, decently upscale counties, DuPage and Lake, both lost younger adults with degrees. I asked asked Crain’s to sanity check this with demographer Rob Paral, and it’s apparently accurate. I put together the following chart of percentage growth in adults with degrees for various ages groups for those counties in the following chart:
The high growth of adults with degrees all the way up to 44 is in Cook (Chicago). These younger brackets actually shrank in those suburban counties, which did well in the over 45s. There would appear to have been some significant aging in those suburbs, which could have implications for them in the future. There are a number of suburban and exurban counties I didn’t include. Many of them are growing younger people with degrees. But I found the case of these two large, mature suburban counties interesting.
This makes much more sense. Still, this analysis suggests that St. Louis and Cincinnati are holding onto more college grads that their larger demographics might suggest. That could be a foundation of successful economic development strategies that low-skill boomtowns wouldn’t have.
Anecdotal, but as a recent grad of the University of Cincinnati, I’ve certainly noticed that more graduates from Cincinnati-area universities are either sticking around right after college, moving to some other close-by city (I ended up in Dayton and I know a number of folks who went to Columbus or Cleveland after graduating), or they’re boomeranging back after a few years away (I’ve known some folks who took jobs on both coasts as well as Texas and Minneapolis who already have or are actively trying to return to Cincinnati). In the past 5 or 6 years, the city has done a much better job of convincing people to stick around to be a part of the changes, but those people tend to be a “captive audience” of sorts in that they get 4-5 years of exposure to Cincinnati and grow to like or love it in that time period. I do think it’s still a bit harder sell to someone on Cincinnati who currently lives outside the region and didn’t go to college there since you don’t really realize the extent of Cincinnati’s assets until you spend a reasonable amount of time living there. So, it can’t instantly sell itself like Nashville or Austin currently are, but people get hooked once they give it a try despite the reputation (or lack thereof). And arguably you can see that in a lot of Midwestern cities right now.
I’d hazard a guess that Indy was able to pull in more people with college degrees in absolute terms by virtue of the fact that it’s pretty much *the* destination in Indiana. Cincinnati still has to compete with Columbus and Cleveland and even Dayton, which probably put a bit of a damper on its absolute numbers. So I’d say they’re doing pretty well considering their regional competition is pretty steep at the moment.
What are “the changes” you refer to in Cincinnati? Cincinnati changes little and only slowly when it does.
Have you visited Cincinnati in a while? I don’t think I’ve seen another Midwestern neighborhood repopulate itself as quickly as Over-the-Rhine has in the past 6 years. UC students and young professionals from nearby cities are noticing the momentum and want to be a part of it.
I live in OTR. I find it a fascinating demonstration project of what is possible in old neighborhoods, but it’s small in comparison to metro Cincinnati. It may be creating a foundation for something larger in the future for metro Cincinnati, but that remains to be seen. What’s happening in columbus’ short north is far larger is physical and economic scale, for example, than OTR.
^Fair enough, obviously you know what’s going on then… hopefully I didn’t sound too much like I was trying to call you out, because I do think we’re mostly on the same page! I completely agree that what’s going on in the Short North is much more expansive. Columbus is ticking all the right boxes right now and their growth is unbelievable. But I do think that there’s an energy level in the core of Cincinnati that’s unique enough to encourage people to stick around rather than immediately head off to Columbus. I love Columbus, but personally OTR’s built form is a bit more exciting. At any rate it’s just anecdotal observations, and like I said I’m sure there’s still plenty of folks heading to the other C’s and elsewhere in the region. I guess my biggest point is that Indy has a little less statewide competition than Cincinnati does.
i have not had the opportunity to see OTR in person, but will definitely try to visit in the next year or two. I would have to disagree with Rod that every city in the country has places like that. OTR claims to be the mostly intact urban historic district in the US. That’s an extraordinary asset if revitalized as has occurred.
A frequent critique of rust belt cities efforts to transform their downtowns and historic neighborhoods is that these areas represent such a small percentage of the overall metro area. But I think these areas are extremely important in terms of the city’s brand identity, national reputation, and over the long-term economic success. The historic areas of New Orleans represent about 1% of the city’s land area, and maybe 0.1% of the metro land area, but those areas dominate the city and metros areas identity. In any event, I would not dismiss the significance of OTR’s revitalization and its long term indirect economic impact on Cincinnati. and
I don’t dismiss OTR’s potential, but it’s larger impact on metro Cincinnati is still ‘potential.’ It hasn’t been realized. It may well be in the future and OTR may be the foundations of something genuinely valuable for Cincinnati’s economy, but OTR is still a form waiting for an economic function. My guess is that it will takes years for OTR to become the center of new economic activity instead of the entertainment district of the moment for the local professional class that is is now.
Sadly, investors and individuals don’t make economic decisions based on ‘urban form.’ They decide based on profits and income. That’s why OTR is a demonstration project and the Short North is the focal point of metro Columbus’ economy.
I hear about OTR as someone interested in economic development and just enough exposure to Midwest issues to want to see what happens there, but almost every city in the country now has places like that, and few people are likely to move to a given city and region because of a given neighborhood. I do a lot of work in Sacramento, and it has truly lovely inner city neighborhoods, supposedly with the densest concentration of coffee houses on the planet, but no one would move to Sacramento unless they were already interested in living in California, or, like the graduates of Midwest colleges interested in Cincinnati, didn’t have social ties there stemming back to their youth. I grew up in Portland and thought it a nice city, but it didn’t really begin to draw people nationally until it got two things: Portlandia, and a whole lot of coverage in Outside Magazine. People move to cities to take jobs, but what they really care about is what they can do after work, and a lot of these supposedly hip neighborhoods don’t offer much you can’t also find somewhere else.
^This begs the question then, if these neighborhoods all offer the same thing, what causes a person to live anywhere outside of their hometown? Does it all come down to proper/successful marketing? Genuinely curious what your thoughts are.
Good question, Ethan. OTR, or downtown Cincy more generally, isn’t bringing anyone to Cincinnati to live or start a business. It’s just giving Cincinnati’s class of young professionals a place to play at being like the young professionals in other cities they’ve visited and learned about. OTR is a ‘us too’ project, it’s not a self-sustaining center of new economic growth. It’s certainly an asset for metro Cincinnati, but it’s window dressing. It’s not the genuine and broad metro growth of Nashville, Indy, or Columbus. I remains to be seen if OTR ever becomes the foundations of something more,
My anecdotal impressions are that people leave there hometown for a few common reasons. One is that they move away to go to college or they join the military and are posted to a base somewhere other than their hometown, and then end up not going back to their hometown because they have a job, friends, etc. somewhere else. Another reason would be that they receive a good job offer in other town. A third reason would be that they marry someone from other town and move their spouse’s hometown or somewhere else. I guess a fourth reason is for retirees to move closer to their adult children and grandchildren who have left their hometown. And I guess another reason would be retirees moving somewhere either for the weather or to save money on the cost of living or to cash out of their homes in an expensive metro.
Regarding Chicago metro area educational attainment: the DuPage and Lake County data you cite passes my smell test. There are pockets of growing young adult educational attainment (i.e., Naperville in DuPage) but otherwise DuPage and Lake are rapidly aging.
I see three Chicagoland trends at work. Cook County, mostly Chicago, is gaining educated young adults much in the same way you describe Cincinnati; low growth, greater share. DuPage and Lake are growing older very quickly. Will, Kane, McHenry, and Kendall counties are mimicking Sun Belt cities by adding educated young adults to a small base. The core, inner ring and exurban models at work.
So, Cincinnati must be losing less educated and retaining more educated. That seems counter to the national trend of greater mobility among professionals than among the less-skilled.
OTR won’t get people to choose the city, but they make keep people from vetoing it. Almost every good job city now has these places. It doesn’t take a lot of know-how to open a funky coffee house.
…and cincinnati isn’t a “good job city.” It needs more than funky coffee shops. OTR hasn’t helped Cincinnati to get or keep high-skill jobs.
That’s the real point I know a guy, skilled in a branch of computing, who will only go to cities where he can stay a leader in his field. What are Cincinnati’s specialties? What is it the leader in? If it’s a national leader in something, it will draw from a national talent pool. If only a regional leader, than only from the region.
Cincinnati has only a few entities that compete on a national scale. Macy’s, P & G, Children’s Hospital, GE Aviation, and Kroger are really it. Several of those are facing greater challenges than they’ve faced in decades. That’s why Cincinnati its getting little new construction. Most new investment in Cincinnati is in existing buildings because the longer term prospects of Cincinnati are doubtful to investors. That’s why Cincinnati’s OTR neighorhood is gentrifying.
What are places like Nashville doing to break the mold and fuel their redevelopment, compared to Cincinnati? I can’t imagine it’s all because of Vanderbilt. What are they national leaders in that has attracted so much talent, and in what ways can Cincinnati use the assets that it has that its peer cities don’t have to attract people?
Although every city has the same sets of “hipster districts” any more and the lifestyles for upwardly mobile white people are pretty much interchangeable across America at this point, I do think that OTR has the *potential* to be a bigger magnet just because it can provide an East Coast environment through its built form that a “funky coffee shop” along some car-oriented strip in Nashville can’t. Is Cincinnati leveraging this potential, though? I’d argue “not really”, or at the very best, “not nearly as well as they could be”.
For Nashville, it may be as simple a fact as having a rapidly growing population and being the seat of the state government. That allows for an aggregation of lawyers, IT folks, accountants, etc. to be located in the metro to run the state government.
A significant part of Nashville’s strategy is to remove any and all impediments to growth. Development at all costs is the southern approach. Big tax giveaways is another. Nashville has emerged as an applied tech center because of the ability of companies to rapidly expand and change their workforce and physical facilities and that’s where Nashville can compete. It’s only once tech companies become big and powerful that they seek to ensconce themselves in big city downtowns in places like SF, Seattle, and Austin. Places like Cincinnati moves far too slowly t o be able to participate in the tech economy as it works today. OTR is no exception.
Rapid population growth doesn’t just happen. It isn’t a cause. It’s an effect. It is caused by something. That something is the removal of restrictions on the speed and scale of development.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that professional experiences in most American cities are “interchangeable.” Organized and visible glbt life in Cincinnati, for example, is almost nonexistent, or at least very well hidden, in comparison to other mid-sized metros in the Midwest and South. Glbt professionals would simply not be able to replicate the experience of open, visible, and varied lives as glbt people that is possible in Columbus, Nashville, Louisville, or Indy were they to come to Cincinnati. There is still real, open, and organized opposition to gay visibility in Cincinnati that I just don’t encounter in many other mid-sized metros in America anymore. It’s just one more way in which Cincinnati can’t engage the new economy and society.