City Talent Ranking

As I prepare for the Urban Next Summit kicking off tomorrow in New Orleans, I can’t help but check out Forbes recent rankings of Best Cities for Young Professionals.

Looking at the 40 biggest metros in the U.S., Forbes bases its rankings on where the class of 1998 from some of the nation’s elite schools now reside, as well as the number of best big companies and best small companies (as rated by Forbes) in the metro area, median salaries and the percentage of the population between 20-35 who have never been married.

While I tend to take rankings with a grain of salt, this one brings up a number of questions related to the attraction and retention of talent, a topic that we’ll discuss over the next two days with the 100 emerging urban leaders who will gather for the ummit. What can cities that rank low at attracting grads from elite schools but have a large number of “best” companies do to get those top grads? Is there something that can be learned form the cities that may not have a large number of “best” companies but are still able to attract a large portion of top grads (such as Austin, Chicago, Denver, Raleigh, Sacramento and Seattle)? Finally as many of the grads that were tracked for this ranking are now in their early-30’s is there a connection between family-friendly cities and where the class of 1998 now resides?

  

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