Here the increase in young people with BAs or better in on the vertical axis and the increase in total population is on the horizontal:
As you can see OKC has the second largest increase in young educated people and that increase is large given its overall population growth. Charlotte NC and Raleigh NC are getting relatively dumber as their overall population is growing faster than their young and educated population (Atlanta and Dallas too!).
Interestingly New Orleans, Buffalo and Pittsburgh are losing overall population while gaining a decent amount of young and educated people, while Detroit and Cleveland are stinking in both dimensions.
I guess all those Mungowitz-educated Duke students are not staying in NC!
Hat-tip to The Upshot!
5 comments:
If you look at the report itself, you'll see that the percentage of 25-34 year olds that have a college degree has increased in both Charlotte and Raleigh.
In fact, the percentage of 25-34 year olds with a college degree is both higher and has increased faster in Raleigh than in Denver, which is lauded in the story.
The "problem" with Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta (and Dallas) in this report is that all experienced booms in the 1990s, but many of the 25-34 year olds who moved in have stayed in the area (instead of fleeing when they had children or when retiring as in some of the other cities). So, as the appendix to the report itself notes, the change over time is influenced by people aging into the next group.
Raleigh, Atlanta, Dallas had enormous growth in the young and working age in the 1990s. Currently they have lots of young and older both moving in, as well as lots of people who moved in young in previous years growing older. Since there was a big growth in the 1990s and those people stuck around, there are far more older now than in the 1990s.
One would definitely expect the cities that experienced large growth during the 1990s (of non-retirees) to do worse according to this metric now.
Please tell me LV in the upper right is not Las Vegas.
Objection your honor, assumes facts not in evidence.
sustained!
1. Local governments tend to act to drive out poor people.
2. What is up with Atlanta?
3. Since Black Americans (and to a lesser extent Hispanics) seem less interested than other Americans in getting into the education rat race could the chart be just a reflection of that?
The headline is inaccurate, as is the story. The North Carolina metros are, according to the report itself, "getting smarter," or at least the percentage of people with a BA or higher is increased. That holds true both within each subgroup and overall. The percentage of 25-34s in the two Raleigh metros with a BA or higher increased. However, the North Carolina metros have a very strong performance in domestic migration, including of the educated, of those 35+.
The only thing justified by this data is "North Carolina metros getting older."
The facts are in evidence, in the actual report (and Census data) the news article was based on. However, the news article doesn't contain them.
Post a Comment