By Joe Cortright
The single most important factor driving urban economic success is the educational attainment of a city’s population. Statistically, educational attainment–summarized by the fraction of the adult population with a four-year college degree–explains roughly 60 percent of the variation in per capita incomes among large U.S. metropolitan areas. No other single factor comes close.
This chart is the first, most important thing to remember about urban economic development in the 21st century: if you want high incomes, you need to have a high level of skills. Cities with poorly educated populations will find it difficult to raise living standards in a world where productivity and pay depend increasingly on knowledge.
Data for this chart are drawn from the American Community Survey (educational attainment) and from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (per capita income). The four-year college attainment rate is a proxy for the overall skill level of the population.
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This post was previously published on CITYOBSERVATORY.ORG and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
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