Last week, I started looking into the Washington, DC Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which consists of the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland. Given the growth in the federal budget over the last few years, I wasn’t surprised to see that the DC MSA was “the most educated and affluent metropolitan area in the United States,” according to Wikipedia.
The District of Columbia itself has made great strides in recent years, including greatly reducing the rate of violent crime. You may recall that it was known as America’s murder capital during the crack-filled 1990s. However, the city’s unemployment rate is actually fairly high, at 11.1%.
Maryland and Virginia, on the other hand, are very prosperous. Both are among the most economically successful states in the country.
Maryland’s Doing Pretty Well…
Maryland, DC’s (mostly) northeastern neighbor, has seen fairly consistent population increases and has a well-below-average unemployment rate of 7.2%. It actually has the highest median household income of any state, although this can be deceiving – the cost of living is also very high there. (The second highest median household income is in New Jersey, which is not currently an economic paradise.)
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
Attention Real Estate Investors: “Youth Magnet Cities” Are Pulling You In!!!
by Charles Feldman | October 1, 2009Attention real estate investors: Want to know where the markets of tomorrow are? (And, who wouldn’t considering how terrible the markets of today are for the most part!)
Okay then….listen up: Follow the 20 something crowd!
Seems urban planners consider some cities to be “youth-magnet cities”-and these tend to change from one generation to the next.
The Wall Street Journal put together a panel of experts to come up with a list of the next youth-magnet towns and here is what they came up with:
If you guessed this might have something to do with Mr. Obama, you’d be right. Apparently, the experts feels that many 20 somethings will flock to D.C. because they think Obama is soooooooooooooooooo awesome, chill, cool, whatever—and also figure that there may actually be some jobs in government since there don’t seem to be many in the private sector.