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The Wall Street Journal gets into the "where singles live" game with this article. There's not a whole lot new here. The article basically focuses on singles packing themselves into NYC, rehashing the as per usual, "holy cow, it's really expensive here" angle. The piece includes a map, which appears to be derived from the 2006 Census (ACS, American Community Survey) figures. Can't be sure from looking how systematic this map is. But it lists the usual suspects with high concentrations of singles" NYC, DC, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland. Seattle. Also making the cut are Salt Lake, St. Louis and Tuscon, which as might be expected has generated a bunch of positive comments in those places.
Having just been in Tuscon, I looked closely at their data, and while the city and region have a reasonably high concentration of singles, they have a less great brain drain index score. In other words, the proportion of college grads in their labor market is quite a bit less than the proportion of young folks pursuing degrees. Of course this is a function of their being a college town. I might add that their economic development leadership really, really gets it. The folks in Tuscon have done some terrific analysis of their current situation and put together one of the best strategic plans for how to grow and prosper I've seen in quite some time.
My main point here is that we need do more than "count" singles. Measures like the brain drain index enable communities to get a handle on how well they are doing at retaining the college students they produce. If human capital drives economic development, these folks really matter. If they've chosen your town to go to school, then you have a fantastic opportunity to keep them on. Realize too that the propensity to move goes straight down starting at 24 years of age. Places that attract a lot of college students should view them as "recruitment" or "retention" opportunities and focus on them like they do on business.
I'll be reporting our own rankings of the best places for singles (along with four other life stages) based on comprehensive data compiled by my Prosperity Institute colleague, Kevin Stolarick for overall bests, best buys, and for gays and lesbians as well.
I have noticed a chronic mis-spelling of my hometown's name. In your book as well as here, on your website, you refer to TuCson, AZ as TuScon, AZ.
Jareau Wade
Tucson, AZ
Posted by: Jareau Wade | February 27, 2008 at 10:24 AM