Smart people tend to gravitate to one another. Bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, and other post-graduate education certificates are all signs of, if not intelligence, then at least training and a willingness to endure several years of boring, difficult, useless crap in the name of proving intelligence and landing employment. So, where are these highly-educated folks flocking to? Well, according to the Census Bureau, leading America’s smartest cities is Washington D.C., followed closely by San Francisco and San Jose in California.
I know, right? I don’t believe it either, but apparently it’s the truth. A staggering 47 percent of Washington residents have some kind of college education. (My home town, Louisville, made the bottom 10 thanks to our 25 percent of residents with degrees, making my city the education equivalent of strippers!) Here’s my question: how many of those degrees are useful degrees, and how many of those are degrees in poly-sci, communications, and law?
“There’s a very high share of federal government employees here,” said John Schmidt, senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in D.C., “and people dealing with the federal government, including defense contractors, lobbyists, businesses that want to influence the regulatory process; there’s lots of lawyers. Clearly, the biggest factor is still the presence of federal government jobs. But a lot of people in the 20s and 30s come here interested in public policy. There’s an excitement about being in Washington, especially among young people who want to make a difference in the world.”
Tags: America’s smartest cities, smartest places in America, smart cities, Washington D.C., Census Bureau, John Schmidt, Center for Economic and Policy Research, most college degrees in a city, city with the highest education level, Census Bureau data