Ranking Larger College Towns

Photo Credit: ensign_beedrill CC BY-SA 2.0

A few weeks ago I took a look at smaller college towns. Today I’ll present some data about larger ones. This list is a bit more challenging in some respects. For one thing, because these are larger cities (relative to the previous list at a minimum), are they really “college towns”? Madison is the state capital of Wisconsin, for example. The university is important to be sure, but doesn’t dominate the city to quite the extent that say the University of Illinois does Champaign-Urbana. In any event, I’m presenting this with very limited analysis.

Population

Here’s my new list, sorted by total metro area population.

Rank	Metro Area	2017
1	Knoxville, TN (University of Tennessee)	877,104
2	Madison, WI (University of Wisconsin)	654,230
3	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC (Duke, University of North Carolina)	567,428
4	Lexington-Fayette, KY (University of Kentucky)	512,650
5	Lansing-East Lansing, MI (Michigan State University)	477,656
6	Eugene, OR (University of Oregon)	374,748
7	Ann Arbor, MI (University of Michigan)	367,627
8	Lincoln, NE (University of Nebraska)	331,519
9	Boulder, CO (University of Colorado)	322,514
10	Gainesville, FL (University of Florida)	284,687

Knoxville is so big that I have my doubts as to whether it should be on the list. By contrast, in retrospect Gainesville may also have been a better fit for my previous list. (Also, I don’t claim this list is exhaustive. It’s just a sampling for blog purposes)

Here is where they rank on population change.

Rank	Metro Area	2010	2017	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	508,532	567,428	58,896	11.58%
2	Lincoln, NE	302,980	331,519	28,539	9.42%
3	Boulder, CO	295,930	322,514	26,584	8.98%
4	Lexington-Fayette, KY	473,306	512,650	39,344	8.31%
5	Madison, WI	606,578	654,230	47,652	7.86%
6	Gainesville, FL	264,607	284,687	20,080	7.59%
7	Eugene, OR	351,880	374,748	22,868	6.50%
8	Ann Arbor, MI	345,515	367,627	22,112	6.40%
9	Knoxville, TN	838,748	877,104	38,356	4.57%
10	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	464,189	477,656	13,467	2.90%

This is mostly in line with what I would have thought, though Lincoln is perhaps a bit higher up than most people would have guessed.

Gross Domestic Product

Here is a ranking by real GDP per capita.

Rank	Metro Area	2016
1	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	68,586
2	Boulder, CO	67,265
3	Madison, WI	64,767
4	Ann Arbor, MI	53,489
5	Lincoln, NE	51,013
6	Lexington-Fayette, KY	50,528
7	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	40,781
8	Knoxville, TN	40,548
9	Gainesville, FL	39,102
10	Eugene, OR	36,536

There is quite a dramatic disparity between communities on this metric.

Here they are ranked by change in real GDP since 2010.

Rank	Metro Area	2010	2016	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Madison, WI	59,248	64,767	5,519	9.32%
2	Eugene, OR	33,678	36,536	2,858	8.49%
3	Knoxville, TN	38,193	40,548	2,355	6.17%
4	Lexington-Fayette, KY	47,786	50,528	2,742	5.74%
5	Lincoln, NE	48,361	51,013	2,652	5.48%
6	Boulder, CO	64,097	67,265	3,168	4.94%
7	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	41,224	40,781	-443	-1.07%
8	Gainesville, FL	39,800	39,102	-698	-1.75%
9	Ann Arbor, MI	55,773	53,489	-2,284	-4.10%
10	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	78,768	68,586	-10,182	-12.93%

It’s very interesting to see so many of these cities with declining per capita GDP, especially places conventionally touted as doing well such as Durham and Ann Arbor. The difference in performance between Madison and Ann Arbor (often bracketed together in comments about Midwestern cities) is notable.

Jobs

Again, we’ll start off by ranking by total jobs. Values in thousands.

Rank	Metro Area	2017
1	Madison, WI	400.9
2	Knoxville, TN	395.8
3	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	310.6
4	Lexington-Fayette, KY	278.4
5	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	235.1
6	Ann Arbor, MI	220.2
7	Boulder, CO	188.8
8	Lincoln, NE	188.3
9	Eugene, OR	159.0
10	Gainesville, FL	142.2

And next job growth since 2010.

Rank	Metro Area	2010	2017	Total Change	Pct Change
1	Boulder, CO	159.2	188.8	29.6	18.59%
2	Lexington-Fayette, KY	242.4	278.4	36.0	14.85%
3	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	270.7	310.6	39.9	14.74%
4	Eugene, OR	141.4	159.0	17.6	12.45%
5	Gainesville, FL	126.7	142.2	15.5	12.23%
6	Ann Arbor, MI	196.3	220.2	23.9	12.18%
7	Madison, WI	359.4	400.9	41.5	11.55%
8	Knoxville, TN	358.2	395.8	37.6	10.50%
9	Lincoln, NE	172.2	188.3	16.1	9.35%
10	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	215.0	235.1	20.1	9.35%

My income database is slightly out of date, so I’m not going to include that figure for these communities.

 

from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2018/05/23/ranking-larger-college-towns/