Top Cities For Young People

The report, "The Young and Restless in a Knowledge Economy" written by Oregon-based economist Joseph Cortright for the group, CEOs for Cities, "uncovers a number of emerging trends that suggest an urgent need for cities to focus their efforts on attracting and retaining college-educated 25- to 34-year-olds.

...Young adults tend to be disproportionately located in the center of metro areas, and this pattern will continue to intensify. According to the report, the cities currently with the most attractive close-in neighborhoods include Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Boston.

...This trend has largely been ignored by many cities, which are still focused on business climate and tax incentives..."

From the report:

The U.S. is on the verge of a seismic shift in labor markets. For decades, U.S. economic growth has been propelled by a steady improvement in the size and quality of the nation’s workforce. A tide of baby boomers entered the labor force, women’s participation in paid work outside the home nearly doubled and the number of college-educated adults increased over the past 40 years from 10 million to 50 million. But over the next decade, all of the forces that drove labor force growth collapse or reverse. The baby boom generation, now in its peak earning years, will retire in substantial numbers, women’s labor force participationâ€"now nearly the same as men’sâ€"won’t increase further and the college graduation rate has hit a plateau, with no sign of a national or local commitment to increase capacity dramatically.

...The college-educated 25 to 34 year-olds we call the Young and Restless are a critically important factor in the response to this change. Because they are well-educated, adaptable, mobile and relatively inexpensive, they represent a critical resource for companies looking to expand. They are the part of the so-called creative class that is up for grabs.

...Even within metropolitan areas, place appears to be playing an increasingly important role. During the 1990s, the preference of young adults for locations in close-in neighborhoods increased sharply. In 1990, 25 to 34 year-olds were about 10 percent more likely than other residents in the metropolitan area to live in the close-in neighborhoods within 3 miles of the region’s center. By 2000, young adults were more than 30 percent more likely than other metropolitan residents to live in these close-in neighborhoods. Between 1990 and 2000, the likelihood that young adults would choose to live in a close-in neighborhood increased in every one of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas."

Thanks to Sheila Edmundson Redick