Where the Brains Are

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by jimnagrom, Sep 9, 2006.

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  1. jimnagrom

    jimnagrom New Member

  2. JoAnnP38

    JoAnnP38 Member

    Would love to read it, bit it requires subscription. Can you post a paragraph or two?
     
  3. edowave

    edowave Active Member

  4. Daniel Luechtefeld

    Daniel Luechtefeld New Member

    Richard Florida has become famous for his thesis that the "creative classes" which drive the 21st century economy are flocking to cosmopolitan, globalized coastal cities.

    One of the more eye-raising aspects of his thesis is that the gay-friendliness is a requisite cultural characteristic of the kinds of cities which will be winners in a globalized, 21st century economy. Seattle and San Francisco attract creative class members, Salt Lake City doesn't.
     
  5. jimnagrom

    jimnagrom New Member

    Re: Re: Where the Brains Are

    ...Today, a demographic realignment that may prove just as significant is under way: the mass relocation of highly skilled, highly educated, and highly paid Americans to a relatively small number of metropolitan regions, and a corresponding exodus of the traditional lower and middle classes from these same places. Such geographic sorting of people by economic potential, on this scale, is unprecedented. I call it the “means migration.” ...

    ...According to research by Christopher Berry of the University of Chicago and Edward Glaeser of Harvard, in 1970 human capital was distributed relatively evenly throughout the United States. Nationally, 11 percent of the population over twenty-five years old had a college degree, and that figure ranged between 9 percent and 13 percent in fully half of America’s 318 metropolitan regions. In Washington, D.C., 18 percent of the residents had finished college; in Cleveland, only 4 percent had finished...

    ...Over the past three decades, the percentage of Americans holding a college degree has more than doubled, reaching 27 percent by 2004, but as the maps below show, those gains have not been evenly spread. For instance, about half of the residents of Washington, D.C., and San Francisco now have college degrees—versus 14 percent and 11 percent in Cleveland and Detroit respectively. The trends for graduate degrees show a similar pattern. In Washington, D.C., and Seattle, more than 20 percent of the adult population had an advanced degree in 2004, compared with 5 percent in Cleveland, 4 percent in Detroit, and 2 percent in Newark...

    http://tinyurl.com/gabpt
     
  6. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    You mean Oak Harbor, Ohio, isn't on the list?
     
  7. jimnagrom

    jimnagrom New Member

    I mistake I'm sure :D
     
  8. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    For statistics on pretty much every city and town in the United States, see here:

    http://www.city-data.com/

    The 'top 100' best educated cities in the US are here:

    http://www.city-data.com/top12.html

    (Actually, it's not precisely 100, since a few seem to have been counted twice.)

    The #1 best educated city in the US is Stanford, California. (The name says it all.) Bachelor's degree or higher: 94.6%
    Graduate or professional degree: 64.9%

    Number two is Winnetka, IL.

    The top 100 list is almost entirely upscale suburban enclaves and university communities.

    The cities seem are most likely to be in the Northeastern urban corridor, particularly greater Boston and the greater DC area. There's a secondary concentration in California. But they are also thick in Illinois and pop up all over the country.

    CA 15
    MA 10
    NY 9
    IL 8
    MD 7
    VA 6
    CT 5
    MI 5
    CO 4
    NH 3
    OH 3
    PA 3
    TX 3
    GA 2
    MO 2
    AL 1
    AZ 1
    IN 1
    MN 1
    NC 1
    NJ 1
    WA 1
    WI 1
     
  9. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

  10. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Where the Brains Aren't

    It's interesting to compare the list of most educated cities with the list of least educated cities. The low-end list shows a much clearer pattern.

    Here's the least educated list:

    http://www.city-data.com/top18.html

    The least educated city in the United States is the aptly named Mecca, California.

    1.6% bachelors and above.
    17.7% high school diploma and above.

    Less-educated people aren't abandoning the coast. Just the opposite. They're flocking there.

    Of the 100 least educated cities in the country, a whopping 54 of them are in California. Texas accounts for another 23. The state-by-state breakdown:

    CA 54
    TX 23
    FL 7
    AZ 5
    NM 3
    IL 2
    NY 2
    RI 1
    SC 1
    WA 1

    It's a shorter list than the top 100, and more concentrated along the southern border. And that's the key to the pattern. Mecca CA is 98.0% Hispanic and 59.4% foreign born.
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    As an aside, if there's one thing I've learned from spending time in universities, it's that there's a difference between holding a degree and being smart. There'a a positive correlation, yes, but it's definitely not a value of 1!

    -=Steve=-
     

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