The “Young and the Restless” – 25 to 34-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree or more education – are moving to within a three-mile radius of big city centers, according to a new study.
That feeds economic growth and urban revitalization but those workers are also highly mobile, according to the study by the non-profit City Observatory, a think tank founded by the Knight Foundation.
For three miles around Kansas City and KCK, the number of young and restless increased 63 percent from 2000 to 2010, the study found. The numbers went from 2,640 to 4,294.
Nationwide, the college attainment rate of young adults living in so-called close-in neighborhoods in the largest metro areas increased to 55 percent from 43 percent in 2000.
Outside the three-mile urban cores, educational attainment rates increased from about 31 percent to 35 percent.
The young workers play especially important roles in fast-growing knowledge-based firms “and also as a kind of indicator of the overall health and attractiveness of a metropolitan area,” the study states.
But despite the national decline in overall migration rates, these workers are highly mobile.
“With a million young adults moving each year, the stakes are large,” it states.
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