The great sorting out: U.S. cities polarized along income, education

[Pedestrian]

By Patrick Sisson Apr 4, 2018, 12:11pm EDT

A new study of domestic migration reinforces how Americans continue to sort themselves out, in this case, based on location, income, and education.

Characteristics of Domestic Cross-Metropolitan Migrants, by BuildZoom economist Issi Romem, analyzed U.S. Census and Zillow data from 2005-2016 to track migration patterns based on income, age, education, and whether someone was a renter or owner.

Continued stratification between expensive superstar urban centers and the rest of the country shows how polarization has become more pronounced, and how cities and states such as California are, in many ways, gentrifying.

“The most attractive parts of the country are harder to move to these days,” Romem tells Curbed, “and they’re being moved to by the cream of the crop in terms of education and income.”

Romem presents evidence of what he calls “positive income sorting”: more wealthy, high-income professionals move into expensive cities, a new crop of buyers that helps prop up rising home prices and push out those who can’t afford them . . . . For instance, Romem found a greater prevalence among urban in-migrants of dual-earner couples, and statistics suggest households with fewer earners, such as single-parent families, may be leaving.

Romem goes so far as to say these migration patterns have created a new class distinction between renters and current property owners, who benefit from seemingly endless future demand. In-migrants to metros could even be considered a sort of “transient class,” arriving in big cities as adults, but unable to gain a permanent foothold due to property values.

https://www.curbed.com/2018/4/4/1719...-united-states

[Pedestrian]

In many ways these charts explain why San Francisco has such conflict between long-time residents and the new class of "tech bros" manifested in such things as attacks on "Google Busses" (the fancy busses tech companies provide to shuttle young workers who prefer to live in the city to Silicon Valley job sites).

[Baronvonellis]

Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philly don't seem to be doing well then. They have both lower earning and less educated people moving there. I'm surprised Boston is in the same group. I don't know much about Boston, is that because there are already rich and highly educated people there? Wouldn't New York be in the same position though if that was the case?

Chicago looks to be in a great position, in the very top of highly educated people moving there.

[The North One]

Any study that utilizes "data" from Zillow is automatically compromised. I'm not sure why they would include the whole of the great recession since current trends are much different now.

[Pedestrian]

^^People moving to Boston are more educated than the people leaving, just not as much so as some other places. But I think you're right--that may be because the people moving away from Boston are themselves more educated than some other places, not that the people moving to Boston aren't highly educated.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by The North One

Any study that utilizes "data" from Zillow is automatically compromised. I'm not sure why they would include the whole of the great recession since current trends are much different now.

You really don't know anything about data Zillow has and you don't know exactly what data he may have used or how he used it. So saying something like this is itself sort of ridiculous and every bit of those sentences is unsupported.

It really is annoying when people here with no particular expertise dismiss studies by people who look at such matters for a living using what they consider the best data they can get. Studies like this aren't perfect. But they provide information and a perspective that's interesting so posting something utterly dismissive on little basis isn't helpful, though it's what I've come to expect from this poster.

[LouisVanDerWright]

I mean this pretty much confirms what we keep hearing about the demographic shifts happening in Chicago. Better educated, wealthier, renters pouring in while less educated, poorer individuals moving out.

I'm not sure about what it shows for most other Midwestern cities though. I'm not sure that Minneapolis is a place where the average denizen is making less today that a decade ago, for example. I feel like Minneapolis has had huge influxes of well educated, high earning, Millennials. I mean half of my cousins migrated there and they all are well educated and fairly high earning.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philly don't seem to be doing well then. They have both lower earning and less educated people moving there. I'm surprised Boston is in the same group. I don't know much about Boston, is that because there are already rich and highly educated people there? Wouldn't New York be in the same position though if that was the case?

Chicago looks to be in a great position, in the very top of highly educated people moving there.

As the chart notes, they are using metro areas, not cities, which doesn't really tell you how well the cities are doing. In the case of Pittsburgh, the dynamic is very much one of an improving city, while the suburbs and exurbs as a whole are declining.

Also, keep in mind one group that continually migrates into metropolitan areas is college students, who by nature will have little-to-no income and lower levels of educational attainment. And in most northern cities, the group with the highest level of out-migration will be middle-to-upper-middle class retirees, who will be relatively well educated, and (presuming they use the pre-retirement income) could come out as relatively wealthy as well.

[Sun Belt]

This is interesting. I keep looking at the charts for a city to jump out at me, so far not too much.

Salt Lake City Earners per household chart shows that the newcomers are making far more than the people leaving. I'm guessing this is spillover from the over priced Bay Area?

[Baronvonellis]

Originally Posted by eschaton

As the chart notes, they are using metro areas, not cities, which doesn't really tell you how well the cities are doing. In the case of Pittsburgh, the dynamic is very much one of an improving city, while the suburbs and exurbs as a whole are declining.

Also, keep in mind one group that continually migrates into metropolitan areas is college students, who by nature will have little-to-no income and lower levels of educational attainment. And in most northern cities, the group with the highest level of out-migration will be middle-to-upper-middle class retirees, who will be relatively well educated, and (presuming they use the pre-retirement income) could come out as relatively wealthy as well.

Well yes, of course you could say that about all northern cities in general. Chicago has lots of college students too. The city is improving while jobs are leaving the suburbs for the core. Then why is Chicago having huge gains in college educated people while Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cincinnati are losing college educated people?
St. Louis, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Detroit are gaining more college educated people. There must be something else going on.

Salt Lake City is gaining more households that earn more than one income. Not that they are necessarily earning more. Other than the fact, that 2 incomes is usually larger than one income. That may have more to do with it being very religious place where in the past women didn't work, but now they are in the workplace, or people from out of state that aren't as religious are moving there.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Well yes, of course you could say that about all northern cities in general. Chicago has lots of college students too. The city is improving while jobs are leaving the suburbs for the core. Then why is Chicago having huge gains in college educated people while Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cincinnati are losing college educated people?
Also St. Louis and Detroit are gaining more college educated people. There must be something else going on.

Again, I can't speak for other cities, but Pittsburgh is a very bifurcated metro. The city itself is just about stagnant in population, but increasing in terms of income and educational attainment, as more neighborhoods gentrify and lower-income people are displaced to the suburbs. But the city is just 1/4th of Allegheny County's population, and the exurban counties in the MSA (with the partial exception of Butler County and Washington County, which have some exurbs are doing terribly.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

WThen why is Chicago having huge gains in college educated people while Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cincinnati are losing college educated people?

Where are you getting this data?

I would bet that every metro area has a rising share of college educated. Among the metros you list, I don't think Chicago would be an outlier in terms of % increase in college educated.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Where are you getting this data?

I would bet that every metro area has a rising share of college educated. Among the metros you list, I don't think Chicago would be an outlier in terms of % increase in college educated.

Actually, it is true:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...cated-big-city

According to American Community Survey data compiled by Zotti, the share of Chicagoans over age 25 with bachelor's degrees or higher leapt from 29.3 percent in 2006 to 38.5 percent last year, with the increase particularly strong since 2011. That hike was larger than any of the country's four other most-populous cities—New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia—and more than twice the 4.3 percent national increase.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Actually, it is true:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...cated-big-city

That link is talking about cities, not metros. And it's wrong (or at least deceptive). Chicago isn't close to the nation's best educated city (or metro).

It's probably Seattle, Bay Area, or DC, if you want city proper, MSA or CSA.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

You really don't know anything about data Zillow has and you don't know exactly what data he may have used or how he used it. So saying something like this is itself sort of ridiculous and every bit of those sentences is unsupported.

I know everything about Zillow, you, however, are oblivious. Zillow has no access to any official data or the MLS, they get all their info from random internet sources that are guesstimates, totally inaccurate or at best many years dated. Ask any reputable realtor about Zillow and watch them laugh in your face.

Now shouldn't you be busy spreading some conservative Randian propaganda somewhere?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That link is talking about cities, not metros. And it's wrong (or at least deceptive). Chicago isn't close to the nation's best educated city (or metro).

It's probably Seattle, Bay Area, or DC, if you want city proper, MSA or CSA.

I don't see anything deceptive. It is the most educated among the biggest cities in America, but even in the article he admits that some of the smaller major cities are more educated. In addition, the article shows data that corroborates with this post, which you asked for evidence of:

Then why is Chicago having huge gains in college educated people while Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Cincinnati are losing college educated people?

And now the goal post moving begins yet again.....

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That link is talking about cities, not metros. And it's wrong (or at least deceptive). Chicago isn't close to the nation's best educated city (or metro).

It's probably Seattle, Bay Area, or DC, if you want city proper, MSA or CSA.

It's still a great talking point for the city and it's higher as a percentage than NYC. The increases are stronger than the national average as well, which is also a positive sign. The increase in educational attainment has only accelerated since 2011. I know this will kill you to read, but Chicago appears to be very much on the same track NYC was on during its revitalization.

[the urban politician]

Regarding black people, here is what's happening in Chicago (from that same link):

Particularly interesting is what's happening in the African-American community.

For more than a decade, this cohort overall has been fleeing Chicago in stunning numbers, down more than 42,000 just last year, according to ACS data. But the city gained 18,000 black residents with college degrees since 2011, according to Zotti, the greatest of the 10 U.S. cities with the most black residents.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by The North One

I know everything about Zillow, you, however, are oblivious. Zillow has no access to any official data or the MLS, they get all their info from random internet sources that are guesstimates, totally inaccurate or at best many years dated. Ask any reputable realtor about Zillow and watch them laugh in your face.

Now shouldn't you be busy spreading some conservative Randian propaganda somewhere?

I looked up my house, how does Zillow know when we bought it, the square footage, year built and so on? That information is from the county appraisal site or some other official site so they most be hooked in somehow.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by JManc

I looked up my house, how does Zillow know when we bought it, the square footage, year built and so on? That information is from the county appraisal site or some other official site so they most be hooked in somehow.

This is true, but Zillow still is pretty inaccurate.