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.
Fine, fine, let's look at 35- to 44-year-olds then...
City
46.2% - Pittsburgh
35.9% - Cincinnati
35.5% - St. Louis
33.6% - Baltimore
25.7% - Buffalo
24.9% - Milwaukee
19.9% - Rochester
18.1% - Cleveland
11.9% - Detroit
County
49.1% - St. Louis County*
48.6% - Allegheny County
44.6% - Baltimore County*
41.8% - Monroe County
38.6% - Hamilton County
38.3% - Erie County
36.3% - Cuyahoga County
32.3% - Milwaukee County
25.4% - Wayne County
MSA
45.2% - Baltimore
41.9% - Pittsburgh
39.0% - Milwaukee
39.0% - St. Louis
38.5% - Rochester
37.0% - Cincinnati
36.6% - Buffalo
35.5% - Cleveland
34.8% - Detroit
(*: The core urban county does not include the city proper.)
Well I'll be damned!
That's good for Pittsburgh, but it still isn't what eschaton was talking about, which is that Pittsburgh, alone, of all the rust belt cities, is a "college town". That is simply not true. Since you added some other cities, allow me to indicate the primary college/universities in each
Balto: Johns Hopkins
Pittsburgh: Pitt, CMU
Milwaukee: Marquette
St. Louis: Wash U
Rochester: RIT
Cincinnati: U of Cincinnati
Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo
Cleveland: Case Western
Detroit: Wayne State
Plus all the smaller colleges, community colleges and the like. Every city has a contingent of people there getting an education.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
I don't have the numbers handy for all of the metros, but Pittsburgh is the only rust belt metro where the core city has a higher educational attainment (40.7%) than the MSA as a whole (31.9%).
Obviously Pittsburgh being the "college town" for the entire metro is part of the reason - lots of graduate students relocate here for school. But you don't see this dynamic anywhere else.
A lot of these other metros have more high-pay factory jobs with no need for college education. In Detroit there's a huge contingent of highly paid laborers, so naturally there are fewer residents with higher education. But I don't see how this is relevant, when salaries aren't higher.
^^That's not what eschaton was talking about, though. And I do question that most people are done with grad school by 25 these days. A lot of people these days are 23 or close to it by the time they get their bachelor's. People take all sorts of "gap" years, decades, etc these days as well.
That actually was what I was talking about. The "dynamic" is having the highest-educated portion of the metro being a core city - not that Pittsburgh is a college town.
I didn't make myself clear when I said "educational attainment" but it's the proportion of adults 25 and older with bachelors degrees or higher. That's the typical way that the Census tracks this, because most (but not all) adults who are going to finish a four-year degree are done by age 25. Ultimately a lot of people over 25 will eventually get a degree, but many of those people are already considered (e.g., a 50 year old who finishes up college at 32 is considered, but a 26-year old college dropout isn't - though they might be later on down the line if they finish).
But yeah, Pittsburgh is an unusually well educated core city. Though as I said, part of that is just because of how white Pittsburgh is. If you look at the educational attainment of non-Hispanic whites only, Pittsburgh is high, but not number 1:
Of course, the absolute number of white adults over 25 with bachelors degrees or higher (73,696) is only a few hundred less than Baltimore, despite Baltimore being over twice the size of Pittsburgh. This generally fits in with what I've thought traveling around Baltimore - that the size of the "rich L" of town is basically equivalent of the wealthier neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.
That actually was what I was talking about. The "dynamic" is having the highest-educated portion of the metro being a core city - not that Pittsburgh is a college town.
I didn't make myself clear when I said "educational attainment" but it's the proportion of adults 25 and older with bachelors degrees or higher. That's the typical way that the Census tracks this, because most (but not all) adults who are going to finish a four-year degree are done by age 25. Ultimately a lot of people over 25 will eventually get a degree, but many of those people are already considered (e.g., a 50 year old who finishes up college at 32 is considered, but a 26-year old college dropout isn't - though they might be later on down the line if they finish).
But yeah, Pittsburgh is an unusually well educated core city. Though as I said, part of that is just because of how white Pittsburgh is. If you look at the educational attainment of non-Hispanic whites only, Pittsburgh is high, but not number 1:
Of course, the absolute number of white adults over 25 with bachelors degrees or higher (73,696) is only a few hundred less than Baltimore, despite Baltimore being over twice the size of Pittsburgh. This generally fits in with what I've thought traveling around Baltimore - that the size of the "rich L" of town is basically equivalent of the wealthier neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.
A lot of these other metros have more high-pay factory jobs with no need for college education. In Detroit there's a huge contingent of highly paid laborers, so naturally there are fewer residents with higher education. But I don't see how this is relevant, when salaries aren't higher.
In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't. But there's still an educational attainment gap virtually everywhere in the country (along with an income gap, wealth gap, etc). So some people could argue that comparing 65% white Pittsburgh to 33% white Cleveland is unfair. So I was attempting to adjust for Pittsburgh being a big demographic outlier within the rust belt.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't. But there's still an educational attainment gap virtually everywhere in the country (along with an income gap, wealth gap, etc). So some people could argue that comparing 65% white Pittsburgh to 33% white Cleveland is unfair. So I was attempting to adjust for Pittsburgh being a big demographic outlier within the rust belt.
I think we should take the cities as they are. Hey, Denver, with a 30% Hispanic population, 16% foreign born, largely from Mexico, has 45.7% college graduates. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...rado/PST045216
Re: educational attainment and income, I think it's also interesting to point out the differences between these cities at the metro level.
Specifically, if you pinpoint the younger half of the workforce (25-44), it's pretty clear that the economies of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore areas are both trending in a different direction from the rest of the group. Just out of curiosity, I compiled the averages of the two age cohorts (25-34 and 35-44) with respect to those with a college degree at the metro level:
BA attainment (individuals aged 25-44)(2016 American Community Survey):
Also, here is an interesting comparison of median earnings for full-time, year-round workers (including individuals aged 25+ and all education levels)(2016 American Community Survey). Also at the metro-level:
So, based on this data, I think it's fair to say that economies of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore areas are trending in a more white-collar/post-industrial direction, particularly compared to places like St. Louis and Detroit.
But generally speaking, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're dramatically better off financially, especially Detroit which clearly has a robust well-paid blue-collar sector. Baltimore, of course, has higher wages than any of the other cities due to the East Coast cost/pricing scale, which when adjusting for COL, is fairly on par.
It will be interesting, though, to see what the future brings. Not making any ominous predictions, but with continued automation on the horizon, I do think it will be harder for cities to continue to maintain well-paid blue-collar workforces without adequate re-training programs in place. But that's a whole other conversation.
Great bones
Public transportation
Access to east coast cities
4 seasons
3 pro sports
Beautiful.
there's a lot to like.
This. The Downtown core is beautiful, like a mini version of Chicago:
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.
