Detroit the ONLY metro of 51 to lose college graduates.

**brizee** · October-20-14, 04:09 PM

CHOO-CHOO TRAINS!!!!!

BUT THE SUBURBS!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/up...002&abg=0&_r=0

**iheartthed** · October-20-14, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by brizee

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/up...002&abg=0&_r=0

CHOO-CHOO TRAINS!!!!!

BUT THE SUBURBS!!!!!

**Bham1982** · October-20-14, 04:16 PM

And Houston, #1 on the list, is probably sprawlier and has worse transit than any similarly sized city on the planet.

Apparently choo-choo trains aren't the automatic path to glory? Maybe regional economics is a tad more complicated?

**iheartthed** · October-20-14, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

And Houston, #1 on the list, is probably sprawlier and has worse transit than any similarly sized city on the planet.

Apparently choo-choo trains aren't the automatic path to glory? Maybe regional economics is a tad more complicated?

Or they went from being completely dumb to a little less dumb? We're talking above percentages here, not raw numbers...

**bailey** · October-20-14, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by brizee

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/up...002&abg=0&_r=0

CHOO-CHOO TRAINS!!!!!

BUT THE SUBURBS!!!!!

Per the article, Birmingham, Al was right there with Detroit. So... not the ONLY one.

**bailey** · October-20-14, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

And Houston, #1 on the list, is probably sprawlier and has worse transit than any similarly sized city on the planet.

Apparently choo-choo trains aren't the automatic path to glory? Maybe regional economics is a tad more complicated?

The study's metric was to look at those moving to the close in neighborhoods/core of the city. not the MSA

**Bham1982** · October-20-14, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by bailey

The study's metric was to look at those moving to the close in/core of the city. not the MSA

Have you been to downtown Houston? It isn't somewhere you would move to if you wanted an urban environment. It's mostly a wasteland of parking lots and stand-alone office towers, kind of like a gigantic Southfield Town Center.

**bailey** · October-20-14, 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Have you been to downtown Houston? It isn't somewhere you would move to if you wanted an urban environment. It's mostly a wasteland of parking lots and stand-alone office towers, kind of like a gigantic Southfield Town Center.

I'm sure they're not talking about geographically dead center, but probably looking at much of the inner loop neighborhoods. Point being, the area actually served by METROrail..and study after study seem to point to educated Millennial/gen-y/young hipsters flocking to areas served by functional mass transit..it's not surprising Detroit isn't keeping up. The study wasn't talking about the Woodlands..etc

Of course rail or not, would anyone be flocking to houston if not for an energy boom? no.

**iheartthed** · October-20-14, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by bailey

I'm sure they're not talking about geographically dead center, but probably looking at much of the inner loop neighborhoods. Point being, the area actually served by METROrail. The study wasn't talking about the Woodlands..etc

The statistic about losing college educated was at the metro level.

All but one of the 51 largest metropolitan areas [[Detroit) experienced an increase in the number of
25 to 34 year olds with a four-year degree between
2000 and 2010. Among other metropolitan areas,
growth ranged from about 1% in Cleveland to 87%
in Riverside. The fastest growing metropolitan
areas tended to be in parts of the country that
experienced the housing boom of the past decade,
and which experienced large increases in their
overall population. Several cities with relatively
small numbers of well-educated young adults
experienced large percentage increases from the
small base they had in 2000.

http://cityobservatory.org/wp-conten...port-Final.pdf

**bailey** · October-20-14, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The statistic about losing college educated was at the metro level.

Using data from the recently released American Community Survey, this report examines population change in the 51 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more population, and focuses on the change in population in close-in neighborhoods, those places within 3 miles of the center of each metropolitan area’s primary central business district.

I guess i took that to mean the driver of the changes was in the urban core.

**iheartthed** · October-20-14, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by bailey

I guess i took that to mean the driver of the changes was in the urban core.

It'd be very hard for me to believe that Detroit had a 10 percent decline in educated 25 - 34 year olds in the urban core.

**animatedmartian** · October-20-14, 04:57 PM

From 2000 to about 2005, I'm pretty sure no one was moving downtown. And obviously with an already low number of residents, it wouldn't take that much to get such a high percentage in either direction.

**TTime** · October-20-14, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

From 2000 to about 2005, I'm pretty sure no one was moving downtown. And obviously with an already low number of residents, it wouldn't take that much to get such a high percentage in either direction.

Prepare yourselves for anecdotal evidence but many of my friends moved downtown during this period. I'll let the others chime in and educate you as to everything that was happening in the city at this time.

**Hypestyles** · October-20-14, 08:19 PM

make michigan more lgbt friendly.. make it more transit friendly.. divert more jobs to the city's urban core... provide much more job training for residents who are current non-college graduates.. radically revise the public schools with an eye toward multi-track curriculums..

**canuck** · October-20-14, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Have you been to downtown Houston? It isn't somewhere you would move to if you wanted an urban environment. It's mostly a wasteland of parking lots and stand-alone office towers, kind of like a gigantic Southfield Town Center.

Godzilla's wet dream.

**Gistok** · October-20-14, 09:19 PM

Yawn.... OK... who amongst you here is surprised by these statistics?

This is for the dozen years 2000-2012... there were some pretty awful years in there for metro Detroit. The -10% shouldn't surprise anyone.

The small print by the graph says that the rate does not reflect the current percentage. Give me current stats... not another Op-Ed piece by a grad student who knows how to put out bar charts.

This isn't about mass transit or that urban experience... it's about JOBS... plain and simple. If they the jobs aren't here, then people are not staying and not coming. It's not as though we can't get people here to fill available openings. When that happens... then that would be newsworthy.

**animatedmartian** · October-20-14, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by TTime

Prepare yourselves for anecdotal evidence but many of my friends moved downtown during this period. I'll let the others chime in and educate you as to everything that was happening in the city at this time.

That may be so, but if 10 of your friends moved in while 20 other college-aged residents moved out, there was still a net loss. Not to mention if many people might have lost their condo/home if it got foreclosed on between 2008 and 2011.

**DetroitPlanner** · October-20-14, 09:23 PM

This is a 12 year snapshot that included the time when Michigan had recorded the only population decrease of the 2010 Census. We had severe economic problems here, have you forgotten?

The data needs to be read with this in mind. It is not reflective of what is going on now. The biggest issues we have is that once relatively stable neighborhoods in the City are still emptying out. However the big reason for people leaving [[the elimination of 100,000's of jobs) has subsided and had reversed somewhat.

**ghettopalmetto** · October-20-14, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

This is a 12 year snapshot that included the time when Michigan had recorded the only population decrease of the 2010 Census. We had severe economic problems here, have you forgotten?

The data needs to be read with this in mind. It is not reflective of what is going on now. The biggest issues we have is that once relatively stable neighborhoods in the City are still emptying out. However the big reason for people leaving [[the elimination of 100,000's of jobs) has subsided and had reversed somewhat.

Bingo. A lot can happen in five years' time, which isn't necessarily captured in the 2000-2012 data. And if I read the article correctly, it focuses on neighborhoods "within three miles of the Central Business District". So whether the data is even meaningful is even questionable--many older cities have appealing older neighborhoods much further than three miles from the center of town. Or the neighborhoods within three miles might be too expensive for the 25-34 demographic. So I really wouldn't draw too much inference from this.

**Danny** · October-21-14, 08:32 AM

No college grad wants to live a city filled with way too many poor welfare and food stamps pacifying blackfolks unless they get found a job working with Dan Gilbert, Peter Karmanos and Mike Illitch. Sounds racist but that's what people are saying to me these days.

**iheartthed** · October-21-14, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

However the big reason for people leaving [[the elimination of 100,000's of jobs) has subsided and had reversed somewhat.

What's going to stop it from happening again when we hit the next downturn?

**Hermod** · October-21-14, 08:47 AM

Originally Posted by TTime

Prepare yourselves for anecdotal evidence but many of my friends moved downtown during this period. I'll let the others chime in and educate you as to everything that was happening in the city at this time.

Sort of like after the 1972 presidential election [[McGovern only took Massachusetts and DC), a woman from the New York glitteratti said she didn't see how Nixon could have won because "no one I knew voted for him".

**313WX** · October-21-14, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

What's going to stop it from happening again when we hit the next downturn?

Exactly. One thing people seem to forget is how cyclical the Auto Industry is. When people fear losing their jobs again once the next recession hits [[which indications suggest could be within the next 12-24 months), the last thing they're going to worry about is buying new cars or servicing at expensively-priced car dealers. That's going to trickle down and impact everyone here on depends on investment from the automakers.

As far as economic diversity, the state/region is no better off than it was back in the late 80s/early 90s [[during that time, we weren't necessarily an employment utopia with UE around 7%, but we weren't losing jobs at the pace we were during the early 80s either).

**DetroitPlanner** · October-21-14, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

What's going to stop it from happening again when we hit the next downturn?

Look into your crystal ball and tell us oh seeker of doom and gloom.

**iheartthed** · October-21-14, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Look into your crystal ball and tell us oh seeker of doom and gloom.

Seeker of doom and gloom? Dude, this is reality. Recessions are a natural part of the economy. But Detroit gets hits by recessions particularly hard, for whatever reason. And every time Detroit get hits by a recession it never seems to recover to where it was before. This has been true in Detroit since the middle of the 20th century.