Smarter Cities

A new study (h/t: Kevin Stolarick) by Stat Can's Desmond Beckstead, Mark Brown and Bruce Newbold finds that people with university degrees are not only more prevalent in big cities, they are growing more rapidly there.  The study also finds that:

high rates of degree attainment across urban populations are related to both the ability of large cities to attract degree holders and higher rates of degree attainment in large cities ... The relatively high rate of growth in university degree holders in cities has stemmed from net migratory flows. But the more dominant force has been the higher rate of degree attainment within the cities themselves.

Comments

[DC]

Did you mean to say "are not JUST more prevalent?"

[RF]

DC - Thanks. Fixed.

[Michael Wells]

This reinforces your Where The Brains Are map from a year or so ago, showing the US in 1970 and 2000. The same thing is true in Canada and apparently France. Does this apply to the whole developed world, or for that matter the whole world?

I think part of it is absorption. A small agricultural town needs fewer degree holders -- a lawyer, a doctor, a vet, a few teachers and not much more.

[Whitney Gunderson]

I agree with the study.
:)