Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I disagree. Pittsburgh went from overwhelmingly blue-collar to overwhelmingly white-collar in 30 years. (I'm talking about actual jobs and employment, not the "vibe.")
Pittsburgh still feels very blue collar in terms of the vibe, and there are still a good amount of traditional blue collar folks living in the urban core. Way more than Chicago does at this point.
bmw sterling: I hate to disillusion you but from what you write, you are NOT a blue collar worker.
Blue collar is defined by at least one of the following (I would say BOTH):
- Hourly wages (i.e. an employee)
- Manual labor (fixing computers hardly qualifies - being the boss of people who fix computers certainly does not).
I agree with your complaints about being a 'white collar' worker, but your gripes are with being an employee, not with the specifics of white v. blue collar. As your own boss you are free from having to wear any collar perhaps.
Yes, there is much to be said for society's placing too much prestige on being 'white collar' often creating slaves in cubicles. But not every alternative to that qualifies as blue collar.
I think education levels is the best way to measure how "white collar" an area is.
I pulled this list off a Brookings report. http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/gwrp/publinks/2003/education.pdf (broken link)
I'm not sure where to find updated info on this.
looks like they left out SF Bay area. That would certainly be up there.
Table 1: Educational Attainment in the 20 Largest Metropolitan Areas, 2000
City / Percent with Bachelor's / Percent with Grad Degree
Two comments on this:
1. The reason they left out the SF Bay area is no oversight. On the contrary, it is precisely the FLAW with this study for our purposes: they're using the old PMSA definition, on which SF is a separate PMSA from Oakland (and San Jose), which breaks up the Bay Area into several artificial metro areas. On this methodology, SF is not one of the top 20 metro areas in terms of population. This is the reason that Nassau-Suffolk gets listed (instead of being counted as New York) and Orange County and Riverside-San Bernardino get counted as separate from LA.
Whatever one thinks of the merit of treating these things as separate units it is quite misleading when comparing metro areas. Nassau-Suffolk is overwhelmingly populated with professional well to do commuters from New York (yes, I know there are plenty of other types there as well - but we're talking about statistical effects here). New York gets 'penalized' because many of its wealthy suburbs: Long Island, Northern NJ, SW CT are left out of the tally using this method. LA gets a wash because it loses OC and Inland Empire (balancing each other out perhaps). Boston and DC get to keep their whole metro area, and Chicago loses NW Indiana. The census study linked to later is better in this regard (although there too San Jose is dropped from SF Bay).
2. For updated information you can go to the Association of Religious Data Archives website. They post awesome maps with updated info on all sorts of demographic factors on a census block by block scale. You can even 'create your own map' using their features and check for specific factors. City-Data also often has data that's pretty up-to-date on their city profile pages. Also, the NY Times recently had a 'Mapping America' feature that produces pretty cool maps using the most recent info on this. But their maps don't provide you with exact numbers and they're not as high resolution as the ARDA.
I once created an excel spreadsheet tallying up the educational levels for various metros (using city population, MSA population, and CSA population when relevant). If I can find it, I'll try to post the results here.
If anything, Atlanta is more white collar than blue collar. There was a history of a decent-sized manufacturing base here, but much of the economy here was based on white collar jobs due to the city being HQ to many companies.
Much of the blue collar workforce here has been eroded over time. For example GM and Ford both closed their plants in Atlanta last decade.
People also forget there are other types of "collars" that have evolved over the years.
Gold Collar: People can't seem to make up their mind on what classifies a "Gold Collar" worker though. Some define it as younger, low-wage earners/luxury-seeking buyers. Many of whom work in retail or hospitality jobs. More often than not, they don't attend college. They may have high disposable income if they still live with their parents and/or not paying college tuition bills.
Others define "Gold-Collar" as "High-Skilled/Highly-Variable" workers. These are your computer programmers, stock analysts, community planners, etc. These were traditionally viewed as "white collar" jobs, but have warranted a new classification due to them having highly valuable/specialized skills compared to other white collar workers such as bank tellers, bookkeepers, etc.
Pink-Collar: Traditionally stereotyped as "woman's work". Traditionally, men rarely worked these positions: Teacher, Flight Attendant, Hairdresser, Nurse, Secretary, Receptionist, etc.
Green-Collar: People who specialize in jobs that help with conservation and the environment. Could range from Architects to Solar Panel Designers, etc.
Gray-Collar: Most often thought of as jobs that older people take, but in actuality, could include jobs that combine elements of white and blue-collar jobs. For example, agribusiness, skilled trades, Food prep, protective services, etc. The main difference between blue collar and gray collar jobs is that blue collar workers are often trained on the job, while gray-collar workers may have a degree in a specific skill set. HR and insurance companies typically make this distinction due to liability and potential for injury.
For Flight Attendant, there are now many men doing the menial work they do and it's blue collar. This is obvious and intuitive. And even Forbes says so.
Blue collar is defined by being menial (low on skill level day to day), characterized by low educational entry barrier and physical work, rather than on based on any brains the person might have.
Pink collar as a term is now obsolete, ever since most women in the developed world enjoyed equal opportunity to education in the mid 20th century. This access means an equal (barring childbirth and mothering commitments) shot in the corporate world, resulting in many women rising to the top of the political, corporate and social arenas. The leaps in women's rights also resulted in the blurring of pre-defined gender roles. A man is just as likely to be a teacher as a woman. A woman is just as likely to hold a professional, white collar job in the developed world as a man. Teacher is not blue collar like flight attendant. Refer to the definitions of blue collar for the explanation (low on skill level day to day), characterized by low educational entry barrier and physical work. Teachers must have college degrees and do not partake in physical labor for a living.
Last edited by kansasturtle; 08-25-2012 at 02:08 AM..
Pittsburgh seems blue collar to me. As far as actual jobs, well the new working class is mostly in service sector employment, so just because there are fewer steelworkers or whatever, there are still as many working class people.
These three cities I am unsure of how to categorize:
Kansas City, MO
Portland, OR
Phoenix, AZ
Raleigh, NC is very educated to be sure; I believe the Raleigh metro has the highest percentage of people with bachelor's degrees in the nation. It doesn't feel as much "white collar" (which I associate with business/finance sector employees) as it does "White coat"....medical profession, research labs, IT (I guess you could call IT "White collar".
Classic "white collar" cities IMO are Boston, Manhattan, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Houston, and the Northside of Chicago.
Classic "blue collar" cities in my mind are Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Pittsburgh (though Pitt has sort of reinvented itself as a white collar city in recent years), Cincinnati and the Southside of Chicago.
This is educational attainment and median HHI for non-Hispanic Whites (city limits). I'll try to do it for metro areas when I have more time.
Washington, DC (89.40%/$108,629)
Atlanta (76.16%/$84,036)
San Francisco (72.31%/$95,011)
Seattle (63.8%/$71,393)
Boston (62.29%/$71,625)
Denver (61.49%/$58,565)
Miami (59.88%/$62,009)
Minneapolis (57.86%)
Dallas (56.30%/$66,270)
Chicago (55.99%/$68,254)
Charlotte (55.34%/$69,789)
Houston (52.82%/$71,908)
New York (52.15%/$72,295)
Los Angeles (51.83%/$67,252)
Baltimore (50.26%/$58,046)
Portland (49.15%/$54,375)
Cincinnati (45.62%/$48,127)
St. Louis (44.65%/$48,302)
Pittsburgh (42.52%/$45,359)
Phoenix (36.54%/$55,758)
Buffalo (36.46%/$41,108)
Milwaukee (35.41%/$47,316)
Philadelphia (34.80%/$50,164)
Detroit (23.96%/$26,391)
Cleveland (23.81%/$33,581)
Looks like Cleveland is our winner followed very closely by Detroit.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
