Raleigh Named 3rd Best Market for Young Adults

Triangle Business Journal

A new study ranks Raleigh as the third best metropolitan area in the country for young adults seeking to establish themselves in a recessionary economy.

The Raleigh metro area ranked high in the categories of population growth, employment growth, share of total population and the jobless rate for people ages 18-34. Raleigh also boasts a large number of households led by people under the age of 45 with incomes of more than $100,000 and residents with bachelor’s degrees between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the new report from Portfolio.com/bizjournals.

Raleigh real estate was bested in the rankings only by No. 1 Austin, Texas, and No. 2 Washington, D.C.

Charlotte, the only other North Carolina municipality listed, ranked No. 28.

Portfolio.com/bizjournals analyzed the 67 U.S. metros with populations above 750,000, searching for qualities that would appeal to workers in their 20s and early 30s.

The study’s 10-part formula gave the highest marks to places with strong growth rates, moderate costs of living and substantial pools of young adults who are college-educated and employed.

The least desirable market for young adults, according to the Portfolio.com/bizjournals study, is Detroit, which is saddled with the nation’s worst unemployment rate for young adults, the slowest rate of income growth, and the biggest decline in overall employment.

Here’s a quick look at the top 10 metros for young people.

1. Austin: Its attractiveness to young adults is broadly based, and it ranks among the 10 leading markets in five of the categories that were analyzed. This isn’t the first time Austin takes top honors in a Portfolio.com/bizjournals analysis. Earlier this year, the city was named the best city in which to launch a small business.

2. Washington: Educated young adults flock to the nation’s capital, where 35.8 percent of all 18-to-34-year-olds hold bachelor’s degrees. The study group’s median is 23.2 percent. Per capita income ($56,510) is well above average.

3. Raleigh: This is the fastest-growing major metro in the nation. The population of the Raleigh area is increasing by 3.9 percent per year. That’s more than triple the pace for the typical market, 1.2 percent.

4. Boston: Elite universities such as Harvard and MIT give Boston its intellectual cachet. The local share of young adults with college degrees (37.6 percent) is the highest in the country.

5. Houston: Employment opportunities abound in Houston, where the job-growth rate (1.7 percent per year) ranks among the five best in the nation. And so does its annual upswing in per capita income (6.6 percent).

6. Oklahoma City: The unemployment rate for young adults is lower here than anywhere but Salt Lake City and Tulsa. Oklahoma City also enjoys the nation’s third-best pace for annual income growth, a rapid 7.2 percent.

7. Dallas-Fort Worth: The recession caused some backsliding in 2009, but Dallas-Fort Worth still has 206,000 more jobs than it did five years ago. Local population is zipping higher by 2.4 percent per year.

8. Tulsa: Here’s an area that’s a true bargain. Median rent is $508 per month in Tulsa, the third-lowest figure in the study group. Compare that to such budget-breakers as San Jose (median rent of $1,334) or Honolulu ($1,227).

9. Seattle: This high-tech metro offers a wide range of good-paying jobs. Seattle ranks among the 10 markets with the largest per capita incomes ($50,471) and smallest unemployment rates for young adults.

10. Baton Rouge: Louisiana is on its way back from the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, and this is one of its success stories. Baton Rouge boasts a high concentration of young adults (26.1 percent) and a strong rate of income growth.

Raleigh Voted # 1 City For Young Homeowners

Youthful spirit and economic vitality go hand in hand. Communities with large concentrations of young adults are more likely to prosper, according to a new bizjournals study. The correlation is driven home by the study's comparison of metropolitan areas that skew young or old.

Group No. 1 consists of the 11 major markets where more than 25 percent of all residents are 18 to 34 years old. Group No. 2 contains 14 metros where fewer than 22 percent are young adults. Here's how they match up:

-- The young markets have been experiencing population growth of 2.1 percent per year since 2000. That's seven times the growth rate of 0.3 percent for the old markets.

-- The annual rate of job growth is 1.9 percent in the young metros compared to 0.4 percent in their older counterparts.

-- Personal income is climbing at a median pace of 3.4 percent per year in the young markets. The corresponding figure is 2.8 percent on the old side.

It's clear that having a high percentage of young adults can be an indicator of economic success. It tells marketers where to concentrate their efforts, entrepreneurs where to start businesses, and college graduates where to look for work. Raleigh is also the number one city for Raleigh Web Design, Web Design Raleigh, SEO Raleigh, Web Development Raleigh and Raleigh Web Development.

But which markets offer the best prospects for people in the 18-34 age range these days? Bizjournals sought the answer by analyzing growth patterns, income levels and other key statistics to rank the nation's 67 largest metros as BEST PLACES FOR YOUNG ADULTS. These are the five places currently offering the best job opportunities for young adults:


-- 1. Raleigh: This is the only market to finish in the top 10 in three key categories: population growth, job growth, and the percentage of young adults with college degrees. Raleigh is also blessed with a relatively low cost of living.


-- 2. Austin: Twenty-nine percent of Austin's residents are between the ages of 18 and 34. That's the heaviest concentration of young adults in any major metro.


-- 3. Washington: The District of Columbia can be an expensive place to live, but paychecks for workers in their 20s and 30s are among the highest in the nation.


-- 4. Las Vegas: The economy has slowed in Las Vegas in recent months, yet it remains the national leader in job growth since 2002, averaging 4.9 percent per year.


-- 5. Phoenix: The unemployment rate for 18- to 34-year-olds in Phoenix is 5.4 percent. That's three full percentage points below the U.S. average for the same age group.


Rounding out the TOP TEN in bizjournals' rankings of employment prospects for young adults are Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Seattle, Orlando and Houston. Bizjournals analyzed 67 major metropolitan areas, searching for qualities that would appeal to workers in their 20s and early 30s. THE FORMULA gave the highest marks to places with strong growth rates, moderate costs of living, and substantial pools of young college-educated adults with jobs.


The Sunbelt dominates the upper echelon in the national rankings. Eight of the 20 best markets for young adults are in the South, and seven are in the West.


Four of the five remaining slots are occupied by Eastern communities, while Minneapolis-St. Paul is the only Midwestern metro to make the top 20. The competition to attract new and recent graduates to these labor markets is intensifying, partly because young adults are getter choosier. "College-educated young people are looking for greater control over where they live," concluded a 2006 study by The Segmentation Co., a national research firm that surveyed 1,000 adults between the ages of 25 and 34. All of these respondents held college degrees and had lived in at least two communities since leaving school.

Quality-of-life issues are of prime importance to these mobile young workers. They told The Segmentation Co. that they're looking for places that offer strong professional opportunities, have good schools, and are affordable and clean. The same factors were important components of bizjournals' 10-part formula, which analyzed each market's job-growth rate, education levels, and median rents, among other indicators.


The least desirable market for young adults, according to bizjournals, is New Orleans, sitting dead last in 67th place. New Orleans, which is still struggling to recover from the damage inflicted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, has the worst long-term rates of job and population growth in the study.