
Metro areas suffering from brain drain or benefiting from brain concentration - thebent
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-14/in-trump-country-the-brain-drain-takes-a-toll-bloomberg-index
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rm_-rf_slash
Writing from brain gain #4 - Ithaca NY - I can attest to the many reasons
educated people would choose to live here, but one thing that cannot be left
unsaid is that our economy is dominated by Cornell and Ithaca College, and
most of the rest is the service industry for employees of the two. Our success
didn't just appear out of nowhere. Aside from that, however, Ithaca has all
the makings of a great place for professionals to live.

There are more restaurants per person here than NYC; the traffic is never bad
except during 30-minute rush hour intervals; there is enough middle/upper-
middle income here to support high-end retail and services (ex: even if there
is only one very good spa and steakhouse, it is still a very good spa and
steakhouse); the cost of living is...well it's ok. Housing is expensive in the
City and the surrounding Town, but if you go a mere 5 minutes out of the Town
of Ithaca in any direction you practically pay peanuts. Still, food and other
necessities are Upstate-cheap if you don't shop at Wegmans.

But most importantly, Ithaca is a pleasant place filled with pleasant people.
The average person on the street is friendly and helpful. Nobody is "too
important." Maybe it's because we have a top public high school where rich and
poor alike receive a quality education, but there isn't an economic "us vs
them" one often finds in decrepit Rust Belt cities with wealthy suburbs or
revitalized metro areas that sag professionals with "gentrifier guilt."

The point I'm trying to make is that if you want professionals (and thereby,
businesses) to come and stay, you have to make your city a nice place to live.
Tax breaks don't fix a lousy commute. Fancy new mixed-use high-rises don't
diminish the sneers you get from service workers who see you as a disruptive
yuppie who is destroying their hometown without even realizing it.

I know it's not terribly helpful to suggest "if you want to make your city
attractive to professionals, it just has to have _that spark_ ," but I see it
as akin to a doctor recommending the extremely difficult tasks of regular
exercise and a healthy diet instead solving every problem with a pill.

~~~
user837387
>>There are more restaurants per person here than NYC

Seems like dishonest to make a comparison like this given the density of NYC.
You killed your credibility right there.

It reminded me of the saying: >>There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned
lies, and statistics

It also reminded me of: [https://xkcd.com/1102/](https://xkcd.com/1102/)

~~~
wavefunction
Considering the op mentioned per capita rates, that seems to directly
reference "density."

~~~
user837387
My comment went right over your head.

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Bjorkbat
In case anyone is curious, that blue county in New Mexico is Santa Fe county,
which just happens to be adjacent to Los Alamos county.

Besides the Los Alamos connection, there is a research institute that studies
complexity in the county itself, and three private liberal arts colleges.

People also like to move here for the culture alone. Last I checked the arts
economy is somewhere in the top 5 in the country. Combined with the well-
forested mountains, cooler weather, and a history that predates European
exploration of the Americas (roughly where the central plaza currently stands
was an old Pueblo village built in 900 AD), it makes for an interesting place.

Not that I'm particularly trying to convince anyone to move there. Downside of
its long history is that the awkward road network is less a result of smart
urban planning and more the fact that they were old stagecoach routes that
became legitimized by sheer virtue of being old. Also, you likely won't have
any choice but to live in a house made out of adobe (dried mud), because
tourism, which might be why the housing market there is relatively crazy
compared to the rest of poor old New Mexico.

In case you're wondering, I live 50 miles south in Albuquerque and once
briefly lived in Santa Fe before the high rent got to me.

~~~
sjg007
A big not widely talked about issue is crime.

~~~
Bjorkbat
Yeah, that's true, although I've counted myself lucky for being largely
unaffected by it.

That's what you get for being the richest city in one of the poorest states.
Upscale art galleries and horrible drunk driving statistics.

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niftich
Data is nice, but this makes sense. There's objectively not much in
Cumberland, Goldsboro, Valdosta... meanwhile, large metro areas that aren't
too far are attracting educated workers.

Their definition seems a bit strange, however. I understand "brain drain" as a
different phenomenon from the lack of a highly-educated workforce, and their
study does not account for movement of people, which analyses of brain drain
typically do. This just seems like certain metros are lacking highly educated
workers, which should be expected as particular employers decline or relocate.

~~~
zaphods-towel
I agree, this isn't really a measure of "brain drain." Brain drain is when
educated people leave an area (usually a country) en masse. For example, one
of my professors is from Sri Lanka, and she used her graduating class as an
example of brain drain— more than half of them left Sri Lanka upon receiving
their undergraduate degree.

~~~
jwatte
When that happens, ratio of educated workforce goes down. If we assume initial
conditions for education are approximately equal, then outcome ratios do
measure (the result of) brain drain.

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vxxzy
Hey! I actually live in Cumberland! It is as bad as written. Extreme loss of
white-collar opportunities. We do have a navy-sea command base where IBM has a
data-center. They've had the same jobs advertised for over 2 years now. Very
hard to attract white-collar workers. The cost of living isn't so bad though,
and the nature is wonderful!

~~~
freshyill
I drove past Cumberland on a weekend trip from DC to Ohio last year. This will
sound like an underhanded compliment, but it is genuine: it looked very pretty
from the highway! The mountains were beautiful and it seemed like every
building in the whole town was made of brick. I plan to make it a point to
actually visit there someday. I really wish it were possible to live in a
quaint, small city like that.

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rmason
I totally understand why Ann Arbor is on the list. But more than a little
surprised not to see Detroit. Lots of my younger engineering friends from out
state Michigan are finding jobs and settling into the downtown area. Just
heard yesterday that Snapchat is opening an office downtown.

~~~
pmiller2
I'm from Michigan, and there's no way you could pay me enough to live in
Detroit. I could bear to live in Ann Arbor for the right amount of money, but
forget Detroit.

~~~
ap22213
Maybe it's changed. But, I worked in Ann Arbor in software from the late 90s
to the mid 2000s, and Detroit was way cooler than Ann Arbor. If you want to
wear polo shirts, sweaters around the neck, eat pâté and cheese, drink wine,
and look beautiful, then A^2 is your place. But, if you want anything
interesting, you go into Detroit.

~~~
pimlottc
Hey now, I'll not hear anyone talking bad about cheese.

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cowardlydragon
I have parents in Bloomington, Indiana. It's a surprisingly vibrant town with
restaurants and culture, arguably on equal footing with the more populous
Indianapolis, and much much greater than surrounding communitites.

Oh, right, and it has a Big Ten university in it noncoincidentally.

I'm surprised these shitty / declining areas don't take advantage of the
incredibly expensive college in other areas by setting up new colleges in
their areas and subsidizing the tuition, and investing in them to make them
great.

Granted that takes a while to accomplish, but the positive feedback of major
schools is undeniable... and it ain't just the football team.

~~~
jwatte
That also requires an appetite for public education. Which had to be tax
funded (yuck) and can't be Christian (double yuck) and requires equal race and
gender access (triple yuck.)

Old America hasn't done that, for a reason. That's why it's old.

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akshayB
Data visualization is nice but I feel compensation also plays a major role in
this. Pay-scale of an engineer in silicon valley is much higher compared any
other state. Another important factor is also due to globalization lot of jobs
disappeared out of the rust belt states and that is why you see lot of brain
drain on Eastern facing US states.

~~~
niftich
> that is why you see lot of brain drain on Eastern facing US states

Where do you see this? I see Greater Boston, Albany, Ithaca, State College
(Penn State), Greater DC, Charlottesville (UVA), Raleigh-Durham, Ann Arbor
(UMich), Urbana-Champaign, Madison (UWisc) in the 'brain gain' category, all
anchored by one or more strong universities, while a few smaller metros in
Rust Belt states that are missing these amenities and are on the rural
periphery are showing in 'brain drain'.

~~~
akshayB
The places you mention are doing great which is fine but Pennsylvanian,
Maryland, Ohio, Georgia & Virginia look at the map there are so many pink
section. Also I have friends in this areas who ended up moving since their
industry closed down.

~~~
niftich
Per the map,

VA drain: Lynchburg; gain: nearby Charlottesville, Roanoke, Richmond

MD drain: Cumberland; gain: nearby Morgantown (WV), greater DC

PA drain: York; gain: nearby metro Baltimore (MD), greater Philadelphia, State
College

OH drain: Toledo, Lima, Mansfield; everywhere else neutral

GA drain: Valdosta, Macon; everywhere else neutral

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keithpeter
_" Even with this dedication, the city’s population dropped 3.4 percent to
20,130 from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2015, according to the Census Bureau."_

UK: Twenty thousand people isn't even a town here, let alone a city. Am I
being harsh in suggesting that this is basically rounding error? Isn't the
dynamic towards urban (N*10^6 people with 1 < N < 10) concentration?

~~~
niftich
Although that quote refers to the jurisdiction of Cumberland itself, the
ranking is ostensibly about the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical
Area, with a population [1] of almost 100k.

[1]
[https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=19060&ar...](https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=19060&areatype=MSA&geotype=4)

~~~
keithpeter
One hundred thousand _is_ just about a town over here. Best of luck from my
small crowded island.

~~~
pavanky
The definitions of jurisdictions do not translate well across countries. The
definition of city / county / town etc are not even consistent across United
States. You can not compare a UK city to those used in USA.

For reference, the British definitions did stick around in India, and being an
Indian, I can relate to what you are saying :)

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glup
Note the strong correlation between gain areas and the strongly blue counties
from the election:
[http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president](http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president).
Interesting that economic and social force bring the educated together into
dense communities, where they are then under-represented given the way
political power is currently apportioned.

~~~
oniMaker
It's not surprising that the "educated" skew blue. The institutions in this
country preach ideology in addition to teaching practical skills. We all know
which direction the majority ideology follows...

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-
profe...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/6/liberal-professors-
outnumber-conservatives-12-1/)

~~~
zaphods-towel
Unsurprising given the strongly anti-intellectual thread woven through
conservative culture these days.

~~~
mixedCase
I wouldn't say "these days" given the current situation. The arguably most
extremist form of the mainstream right, the alt-right, is quite intellectual
and fairly secular.

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alvern
What is the brain density in northern Alabama? Huntsville? Is that
NASA/aerospace jobs still?

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spitfire
Is this data available somewhere public? I'd like to do some of my own
research and don't have access to a Bloomberg.

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lawless123
Are they all moving to Boulder for the legal high? :)

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Programming can be stressful work sometimes.

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copenbacon
Rural jobs are dying, kinda of sad, really.

~~~
mjevans
More connections means more opportunity. The real cost of being rural is being
even more disconnected; the divide between people still exists, but adding
distance can make it insurmountable.

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aylmao
shout out to Ithaca in #4 in Brain Concentration Index

