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We’re talking about the discrepancy between city proper and metro area degree rates - you understand those are two different things, right? No other city/metro area comes close to Seattle/Seattle MSA in that regard.
Of course I understand the differences between city proper, MSA, and CSA.
Of course I understand the differences between city proper, MSA, and CSA.
Right - so Seattle’s 4 million population MSA has a bachelor’s degree rate of 44%. The 750K City of Seattle proper has a rate of 65%. That’s a huge difference. And it makes sense when you see that the two other anchor cities of the region - Tacoma and Everett - have rates of 28% and 23% respectively. The cities that share borders with Seattle to the North and South have rates of 24%, 48%, and 36%.
Meanwhile the city/metro difference for SF is 59/52 and for Boston it’s 52/49. Nowhere close to Seattle’s 65/44. All are metro areas between 4-5 million people.
Personally I think MSA is a better measure because city limits are a bit arbitrary and people from all over the metro come to the city. Having lived in both San Francisco and Seattle I would without hesitation say that SF feels like the more educated place and the differences in MSA (44 vs 52) bear that out.
I'd aim for a middle ranking in that list. Places dominated by white collar workers tend to be full of transplants and as a result fairly soulless and bland.
This has been sitting on my computer for a while now...
Largest MSAs by Percentage of Adults With a Bachelor Degree or Higher, 2019
52.7% San Jose
51.4% San Francisco
51.4% Washington DC
49.3% Boston
48.0% Raleigh
46.2% Austin
45.8% Denver
44.1% Seattle
43.2% Minneapolis
41.9% Baltimore
41.8% New York
40.3% Portland
39.9% Atlanta
39.9% San Diego
39.7% Hartford
39.2% Chicago
39.0% Philadelphia
38.5% Nashville
37.9% Columbus
37.7% Kansas City
37.6% Richmond
37.1% Rochester
36.5% Salt Lake City
36.4% Milwaukee
36.3% Dallas
36.2% Charlotte
36.0% Pittsburgh
35.8% St Louis
35.5% Los Angeles
35.4% Cincinnati
35.2% Indianapolis
34.2% Sacramento
33.4% Grand Rapids
33.3% Houston
33.2% Providence
33.1% Miami
32.9% Virginia Beach
32.8% Buffalo
32.6% Tucson
32.5% Jacksonville
32.4% Detroit
32.3% Birmingham
32.3% New Orleans
32.2% Phoenix
31.7% Cleveland
31.6% Tampa
31.5% Oklahoma City
30.7% Louisville
28.8% Memphis
28.8% San Antonio
25.6% Las Vegas
23.0% Riverside
source: data.census.gov
This is honestly exactly what I would expect. EXCEPT that Baltimore is higher than I would have imagined and SLC is lower than I would have imagined.
Keep in mind, Raleigh MSA is separate from Durham (Duke) - Chapel Hill (UNC) MSA. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Combined Metro is not represented here.
I am not so sure that the ranking would change all that much if it was reported as the Triangle as a whole instead of as two parts.
Wake County is the juggernaut in the Triangle with more than half of the CSA's total population and its educational attainment (51.8%) is higher than Durham County's (47.5%). Orange County's attainment (57.6%) bests Wake's, but Orange is minuscule in population compared to Wake, and not even half the size of Durham County. Toss in the other CSA counties that are less educated and/or less populated & I bet it all comes out in the wash when looked at by CSA. There's always been this perception that the Durham/Chapel Hill side of the Triangle is more educated, but I wouldn't put my money on that anymore since Wake has exploded with growth and many large Wake suburbs post enormous numbers on educational attainment.
Certainly both UNC and Duke have an outsized overall impact on their smaller cities and counties, but the state's largest university, NC State, is in Raleigh.
**all rates taken from the Census website.
So when looking at the entire country, at the scale of counties, there isn't an obvious correlation between bachelor's degree holders and percent of the population born in-state. It looks like a lot of the divergence in percent born in-state is driven by people moving right across state lines --- which isn't really what comes to mind when I hear "transplants" --- but I doubt there's data out there on "average distance a resident lives from where they were born".
It does look like when you get more granular and look at different neighborhoods within cities and metro areas, the areas with more transplants tend to have more bachelor's degree holders, and vice versa. I'm using City-Data's own statistics: scroll down to the map with the census tracts in different shades of blue, and change the criterion from "Median household income" to "Educational attainment - Bachelor's degree" and "Place of birth - Born in state of residence". It looks true for Atlanta, GA and Portland OR, which I picked at random.
The story here is that most people who move from one place to another aren't white-collar job seekers, but moving for other reasons, like retirement or a lower COL or blue-collar jobs. This accords with my experience: three of my closest local friends moved here not for jobs, but to escape family situations. On the other side of the coin, I also had a coworker --- at a white-collar job, and she has a bachelor's --- who got a remote job and moved back to her hometown in upstate New York to be with her friends again. I mean, a lot of people don't want to relocate, there's a reason job applications ask if you're okay with doing it.
(I would, without irony, be really interested to see an attempt to create an objective ranking of different places in the US from "blandest to most distinct local culture", but I doubt that exists anywhere. If I had to guess, it would correlate with poverty rates, with wealthier places being more bland.)
So when looking at the entire country, at the scale of counties, there isn't an obvious correlation between bachelor's degree holders and percent of the population born in-state. It looks like a lot of the divergence in percent born in-state is driven by people moving right across state lines --- which isn't really what comes to mind when I hear "transplants" --- but I doubt there's data out there on "average distance a resident lives from where they were born".
It does look like when you get more granular and look at different neighborhoods within cities and metro areas, the areas with more transplants tend to have more bachelor's degree holders, and vice versa. I'm using City-Data's own statistics: scroll down to the map with the census tracts in different shades of blue, and change the criterion from "Median household income" to "Educational attainment - Bachelor's degree" and "Place of birth - Born in state of residence". It looks true for Atlanta, GA and Portland OR, which I picked at random.
The story here is that most people who move from one place to another aren't white-collar job seekers, but moving for other reasons, like retirement or a lower COL or blue-collar jobs. This accords with my experience: three of my closest local friends moved here not for jobs, but to escape family situations. On the other side of the coin, I also had a coworker --- at a white-collar job, and she has a bachelor's --- who got a remote job and moved back to her hometown in upstate New York to be with her friends again. I mean, a lot of people don't want to relocate, there's a reason job applications ask if you're okay with doing it.
(I would, without irony, be really interested to see an attempt to create an objective ranking of different places in the US from "blandest to most distinct local culture", but I doubt that exists anywhere. If I had to guess, it would correlate with poverty rates, with wealthier places being more bland.)
I live in Arlington, VA which is objectively transplant-heavy (only 11% of adults born in Virginia) and highly educated (74.6% of the adult population have a bachelor and/or higher degree). In my opinion it's an extremely bland place devoid of any unique local culture and basically a billboard for generic trends embraced by an average upwardly mobile college-educated millennial.
I have observed that other places around the country with a similar mix - highly educated transplants drawn to a strong local white collar economy - are very similar in feel (if perhaps to a lesser extent).
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