jawfish

Where the Graduates, Jobs, and Real Estate Booms Are
john posted in politics & culture on September 27th, 2006

The Atlantic has an article in the October edition, Where the Brains Are (subscription required), with some interesting statistics. The piece looks at the the distribution of college graduates by county across the US.

graphic from The Atlantic: The Uneven Fortunes of America’s Cities

The US map instantly shows the pattern, as pointed out in the article, of clusters of highly educated people surrounded by large areas where many fewer have college degrees. Surprise! University towns and large cultural meccas are at the center of these educated areas. The West Coast has concentrations just where you’d expect: San Diego, Orange, LA, Santa Barbara, Bay Area, Portland, Seattle. The author, Richard Florida, points out that while the percentage of college degrees is up nationwide, clustering is also increased in some urban centers over others- San Francisco is 50% but Cleveland is only 14%.

Clusters are also seen in Idaho, Colorado, Santa Fe, Phoenix-Flagstaff, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Austin, Gainesville, Raleigh-Durham, and the big Northeastern cities. The South, Midwest and Nevada have the fewest graduates per population. Richard Florida makes the point that clusters of talent and culture are the primary determinants of economic growth, and that the real estate markets follow these clusters.

The underlying data is available from the US Census. This interactive map lets you see the data by state, and by zooming in, all the way in to census tract.

college graduates by state, darker = higher percentage

college graduates by county

mid-state North Carolina

In the last Census map you can see Wake, Durham, and Orange counties in North Carolina in dark green. These are the Research Triangle counties containing Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill with NC State, Duke, and UNC, respectively. Notice how sharply the percentages fall off with distance from the urban centers.

Conclusions:
If you are buying property, looking for a wealthy area, looking for a tech job, looking for an area with a lot of educated people, this map is your guide. It’s not a bad guide to cultural resources, either.

Last:
These maps also match the recent news about obesity:

LA Times graphic 08/30/2006

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Further reading:
Census Dept paper Seattle Residents Among Nation’s Most Educated
Census Dept paper: Eastern States Lead in Graduate Degrees; Colorado and New Mexico Stand Out in West
Census Dept: Education Statistics
Census Dept home