Guest blog post by Carol Coletta, President & CEO of CEOs for Cities
As the economy continues to shift to from
manufacturing to knowledge, cities have to become really good at some new
things. Cities have to be very good at
developing, attracting and retaining talent.
They have to be very good at connecting their citizens to one another,
the city to the region and the region to the global economy. Cities need to understand what makes them different and then have the confidence
to capitalize on that difference. And they have to create the conditions of
innovation.
We call these success dimensions – Talent,
Connections, Distinctiveness and Innovation -- the City Vitals. And each of the City Vitals is accelerated by
Core Vitality.
But among the City Vitals, Talent is the big dog on
the block.
Our proxy for talent is college attainment. And
our proxy for city success is per capita income. Now, here’s the big news: College attainment explains 58% of a city’s
success. Think about that…58%.
Although there are no silver bullets when it
comes to the success of cities, talent comes about as close as it gets.
Obviously, to increase talent, you have to
invest in improving education outcomes.
But it’s not enough to develop talent.
You also have to keep it. And
based on what we know about the way the best educated people make decisions
about where to live, we know that talent retention is a function of quality of
place, quality of opportunity and quality of message.
It’s interesting to note that of the most
mobile people in our society – college-educated 25-34 year-olds – 64% of them
say, first they choose the city they want to live in. Then, they look for a job. Women are more likely to say that than are
men – and that’s important because young women are now more likely to be
college-educated than young men. But
still a majority of young men say first they look for the city they want to live
in.
What do they want in a city? They want cities that are clean and
attractive, cities that offer them the opportunity to live the life they want
to live, cities that are safe, green and offer housing. They want to live in a city that burnishes
their own brand.
It’s interesting when you look at where young
adults are choosing to live. The U.S.
trends are quite stark. In 1980, 25-34
year olds were 10% more likely than other Americans to live within a 3-mile
radius of the central business district.
By 1990, they were 12% more likely.
But by 2000, they were 33% more likely than other Americans to live in
the central city or the close-in neighborhoods.
And that trend was consistent across every one
of the 50 top U.S. metro areas. My guess
is that the same is true in Canada.
So if you don’t have a vibrant core, you’d
better get one -- quick. Investing in strengthening your core city is investing
in talent.
An interesting footnote to the pattern of young
adults flocking to central cities: People
in creative occupations, no matter what their ages, are 53% more likely than other Americans to live close to the central
city. So you can see what that means to
the success of the entire city, and therefore the province. The investment you make in your central city
is an investment that will pay off for the entire region.
It’s important that the central city radiate
energy to the rest of the region.
While it is not always easy to convince an
entire province that a vibrant central city matters to every one, the evidence
is now incontrovertible that it does.
The longer you delay acting on that knowledge, the more behind your city
will be.
Carol Coletta is the President and CEO of the organization "CEOs for Cities". She spoke at the 1st 2010 Greater Halifax Partnership Building Our Future luncheon on March 25, 2010.
For more pictures from the event, click here.
Carol has devoted her life to understanding what it takes to make cities succeed
– a passion she has pursued as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on
City Design, and as a host of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart
City.
CEOs for Cities is a national cross-sector network of urban leaders from the
civic, business, academic and philanthropic sectors dedicated to building and
sustaining the next generation of great American cities. CEOs for Cities works
with its network partners to develop great cities that excel in the areas most
critical to urban success: talent, connections, innovation and
distinctiveness.