Intelligence and where you live

[kenny]

Interesting study finds the smartest people are more likely to move into cities when young, but move out of them when older.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move-into-and-out-of-cities/373760/

 

[missy]

Interesting. That's our plan but not sure how smart that makes us. More like the best financial decision we can make regarding our future. If we could afford to live here comfortably when retired I would want to keep our urban home forever.

 

[kenny]

Studies measure groups of people and look for trends.

100% of people doing one thing is not what they are looking for, just differences in percentages.
What one person does is not really meaningful.

Like you said, it's just interesting.

My take/bias is smart people go where they can make the most money.
Then once they have lots of it move to where it's not so crowded.
But again that's just one persons bias, mine.
Another person with enough money can have a pretty nice lifestyle in their $50 million dollar penthouse overlooking Manhattan's Central Park.

 

[GliderPoss]

Interesting article. I'd say similar to here in Oz, many young educated people move to the city for better paying jobs in professional areas then once they reach a level of well established income and perhaps a few kids - they move back to a country area with more space, lower mortgage etc. I know country areas really struggle to keep young people as often there are few jobs available and they are usually menial blue-collar types. We wanted to live in our home town but seriously struggled to find work there and eventually moved away to the city again.

 

[lambskin]

Before the big real estate crash in the Chicago area it was typical that young professionals stayed in the city until they had kids. Backyards, schools and less crime and dirt was the motivation. Then after the kids were raised, educated and wedded away then the flight back to the city but in high rises with amenities was the norm for empty nesters. But the real estate market is stagnant, houses are underwater and the educated kids are living back with the parents because they can't get a job or their job is below means. Mom and dad want to move out of the burbs where the taxes are high (for those schools and pools they no longer use) but that two bedroom condo in the sky will not fit their kids and they can not afford the assessments since they have to sell their house at below market rates or less than what they paid.

 

[TC1987]

Or, like Pittsburgh, the taxes keep going up so the retirees might sell and move to someplace with more favorable property tax rates. Neighborhood demographic changes also drove retirees out. Sometimes blight and crime drive the smart and the prosperous out. Or gentrification and influx of younger people and/or same-sex couples and increased neighborhood population, traffic, parking problems, and noise levels compared to when it was a neighborhood of retirees and empty-nest couples are considered as negative.

 

[iLander]

I have asked retirees, and the first sentence of their response always has the words "winter" or "snow" in it.

Most big urban cities have snow.

Old people get tired of snow and move away from it.

To make it in a big city, full of competition from other smart people, you have to be smart.

Then you make your money, sell your place for big dollars and move to a cheaper place and use the profit. And there tends not to be snow.

And big cities are just hard work. It takes a lot of energy. Schlep the groceries a few blocks, trying to find parking, even throwing out trash is a complicated dance of separating recyclables and certain days for certain items. Applications for schools, watching your kids every second (I've seen urban birthday parties, the kids sit at the table, and the parent leans against the wall behind the kids, the entire time), hard to train Fido to pee on concrete. What if Fido needs to be hosed off? Where's the hose? Every little thing is just a pain in the butt. It's tiring. When the job is done, and you've seen every museum and one-man play, there's no reason to stay.

 

[AprilBaby]

Before the big real estate crash in the Chicago area it was typical that young professionals stayed in the city until they had kids. Backyards, schools and less crime and dirt was the motivation. Then after the kids were raised, educated and wedded away then the flight back to the city but in high rises with amenities was the norm for empty nesters. But the real estate market is stagnant, houses are underwater and the educated kids are living back with the parents because they can't get a job or their job is below means. Mom and dad want to move out of the burbs where the taxes are high (for those schools and pools they no longer use) but that two bedroom condo in the sky will not fit their kids and they can not afford the assessments since they have to sell their house at below market rates or less than what they paid.

This is us, not underwater here in Naperville but big house with subdivision pool and no kids. Ready for a condo but too expensive. Thirty one yr old back with us for a bit because he can't afford an apt on a decent salary. Everyone here very educated and proud of it. Very little crime. Excellent schools that we pay thru the nose! Very educated kids here moving home.

 

[Indylady]

Interesting study finds the smartest people are more likely to move into cities when young, but move out of them when older.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move-into-and-out-of-cities/373760/

Interesting! I wonder if the cycle continues? And their kids/the next generation does the same?

 

[monarch64]

Interesting study. I grew up with a R.R. address (rural route), and moved to cities after I finished my bachelor's. Apparently that makes me a "restless intellect"--according to the last paragraph of the article, anyway. I definitely knew from the time I started public school (and then private school, then back to public) that I would not stay where I grew up. I did eventually move back somewhat close to my hometown, but we are in face-to-face contact every single day with friends from places all over the world--university town. It's kind of the best of both worlds to me, small town atmosphere with a lot of really smart people. I'm not sure I could go back to city living at this point--I did it for 9 years and while I loved it during those years I'm in no rush to get back. Short visits are nice.

 

[Sky56]

That was the choice I made also after living in big cities, suburbs and small towns. I did not like life in those three for various reasons.

So, I made a deliberate choice to move to a small college town, and after a few years of living in town, move to a rural area a short drive from the town. I like that the town has culture and a good number of educated people while at the same time it has a sleepy quality. It's clean and pretty and has a low crime rate. Living away from it, I don't have to be around annoying neighbors and noise and I get to look at pretty rural scenery.

It was not an easy choice. When I moved to that town, I didn't know anybody. It was lonely at first. My only friend was my nice landlord.
Two years into it, I met my husband, who was a recent transplant to the town.

 

[lyra]

Interesting. I moved from rural to city as soon as I could, and definitely never left city life after that. Now we're in our 50's and thinking about "downsizing our house" up to acreage. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. So many factors, and so many possibilities if we make the leap. It's so hard to decide what course to take at this stage.

 

[dk168]

The way of life in a medium size town away from a big city is very different.

I love being able to afford a house with a garden, without it I would not be able to have my cat and dog.

I can't even afford the shoe box that was my bachelor pad for 17 years in London that I sold in 2006 to relocate to my current home in the South West, as the house prices have rocketed beyond the reach for most people.

Much as I liked living in the centre of a big city, I definitely prefer the tranquillity of a quieter life in a town as I grew older.

I can always get my big city fixes by spending the odd long weekends in one.

The main reason for moving out of central London was the lack of suitable employment for me. Whether it has anything to do with intelligence I do not know. However, I am entitled to use certain letters after my name, if that counts!

DK

 

[ksinger]

"Most big urban cities have snow"

No, not really. Unless Dallas, Houston, Atlanta (last winter notwithstanding), Phoenix, Miami, San Fran, and LA are considered "small" or snowy. Older people around HERE tend to want to get to some place a bit cooler! I would have moved to Denver years ago had my circumstances been a bit different, but I was always more leery about the awful pollution there than the snow.

There seems to be a tacit assumption going on here that "moving to the city" means somewhere like NY or Boston. Maybe so, if you live nearer there, but out here, moving to the city usually means OKC (yes, even WE have something that can be termed an urban city center, although, in cities that grew up after the advent of the car, they are overall much more suburban-ish from the get go) or more usually, Dallas or Houston, or some other metropolitan center than on either coast. And the study (or the article about the study) did not say anything about how big a city must be to be "city-ish" enough.

The correlation may be there, but how much causation from strictly innate intelligence (and teasing that out from the host of other factors that determine intelligence by age 15 and on, is a sticky wicket all on its own) sounds pretty dicey, and is admitted even by the authors of the study. It IS interesting though....

 

[packrat]

I'll just sit here in my small town of 5000 where I grew up in the middle of nowhere and be stupid.

Waaaait tho...ohhh I lived out in the country (another R.R. 'er here) and went to school in a town of 800. Theeeeeen when JD and I got married I moved to town. The big city of 5000.

Yep, totally works.

 

[distracts]

"Most big urban cities have snow"

No, not really. Unless Dallas, Houston, Atlanta (last winter notwithstanding), Phoenix, Miami, San Fran, and LA are considered "small" or snowy. Older people around HERE tend to want to get to some place a bit cooler! I would have moved to Denver years ago had my circumstances been a bit different, but I was always more leery about the awful pollution there than the snow.

Yeah I flippin' hate snow. And ice. Look, any form of precipitation is unnatural. So are large bodies of water. They're all weird, but snow and ice are especially intolerable.

And big cities are just hard work. It takes a lot of energy. Schlep the groceries a few blocks, trying to find parking, even throwing out trash is a complicated dance of separating recyclables and certain days for certain items. Applications for schools, watching your kids every second (I've seen urban birthday parties, the kids sit at the table, and the parent leans against the wall behind the kids, the entire time), hard to train Fido to pee on concrete. What if Fido needs to be hosed off? Where's the hose? Every little thing is just a pain in the butt. It's tiring. When the job is done, and you've seen every museum and one-man play, there's no reason to stay.

I think again these are northern cities, not southern cities, where these things definitely don't hold true. Except school applications. I think that's anywhere there's a choice though.

 

[ksinger]

"Most big urban cities have snow"

No, not really. Unless Dallas, Houston, Atlanta (last winter notwithstanding), Phoenix, Miami, San Fran, and LA are considered "small" or snowy. Older people around HERE tend to want to get to some place a bit cooler! I would have moved to Denver years ago had my circumstances been a bit different, but I was always more leery about the awful pollution there than the snow.

Yeah I flippin' hate snow. And ice. Look, any form of precipitation is unnatural. So are large bodies of water. They're all weird, but snow and ice are especially intolerable.

And big cities are just hard work. It takes a lot of energy. Schlep the groceries a few blocks, trying to find parking, even throwing out trash is a complicated dance of separating recyclables and certain days for certain items. Applications for schools, watching your kids every second (I've seen urban birthday parties, the kids sit at the table, and the parent leans against the wall behind the kids, the entire time), hard to train Fido to pee on concrete. What if Fido needs to be hosed off? Where's the hose? Every little thing is just a pain in the butt. It's tiring. When the job is done, and you've seen every museum and one-man play, there's no reason to stay.

I think again these are northern cities, not southern cities, where these things definitely don't hold true. Except school applications. I think that's anywhere there's a choice though.

Surely you jest some, yes? Rain is just liquid sunshine after all. I live in drought prone dustbowl country, so I never curse a rain, and snow usually is gone within a day or two here. We do have some truly epic ice storms though. Epic. Those I could do without...

 

[iLander]

"Most big urban cities have snow"

No, not really. Unless Dallas, Houston, Atlanta (last winter notwithstanding), Phoenix, Miami, San Fran, and LA are considered "small" or snowy. Older people around HERE tend to want to get to some place a bit cooler! I would have moved to Denver years ago had my circumstances been a bit different, but I was always more leery about the awful pollution there than the snow.

There seems to be a tacit assumption going on here that "moving to the city" means somewhere like NY or Boston. Maybe so, if you live nearer there, but out here, moving to the city usually means OKC (yes, even WE have something that can be termed an urban city center, although, in cities that grew up after the advent of the car, they are overall much more suburban-ish from the get go) or more usually, Dallas or Houston, or some other metropolitan center than on either coast. And the study (or the article about the study) did not say anything about how big a city must be to be "city-ish" enough.

The correlation may be there, but how much causation from strictly innate intelligence (and teasing that out from the host of other factors that determine intelligence by age 15 and on, is a sticky wicket all on its own) sounds pretty dicey, and is admitted even by the authors of the study. It IS interesting though....

I was thinking Chicago, New York, Boston, Philly. Those seem the most "Urban" to me. Phoenix, Miami, etc., somehow don't impress me as urban, I guess because they don't have a distinct center and they seem more spread out? Or maybe because those other cities are newer? I don't know why . . just one of my opinions, not based on any kind of actual fact.