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5/8/05 GROWTH Northeastern and midwestern cities with harsh winters and dwindling manufacturing jobs have faced stiff competition from southern cities over the last decade, but Boston has been on the rebound, says economist Edward L. Glaeser, director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Kennedy School of Government. He credits Boston's expansion to a key factor: It's highly skilled workforce. "While Boston's population fell each decade between 1950 and 1980, it has risen for two decades, from a low of 563,000 in 1980 to 589,000 in 2000," writes Glaeser. He says residents of fast-growing cities like Boston tend to be better educated than their counterparts in struggling urban areas. What's more, the benefits of education are even greater for some regions. Glaeser maintains in a new report that education is especially important to cities and regions with harsh winters. For them to grow, they must provide high-quality public schools, safe streets and neighborhoods, reasonably priced housing, and sufficient job opportunities to make the metropolitan area an attractive place for expanding industries and their employees. "Cold weather areas such as Boston face steep obstacles to growth," says Glaeser. "Cities with average January temperatures under 30 degrees Fahrenheit grew in population only one-third as quickly from 1960 to 1990 as did cities with average January temperatures above 50 degrees." When Glaeser examined the impact of cold climates on state growth, he found that states with colder climates also tend to grow at slower rates. For example, the populations of 25 so-called cold climate states grew 95 percent between 1920 and 1980. By contrast, the 25 warmer states experienced average population growth of 309 percent during the same period. Still, there are other factors. "Aside from climate, education may be the most powerful predictor of urban growth," said the study. It notes that in the United States and in England, metropolitan areas with the most educated residents have grown faster for over the past century than comparable cities with fewer educated people. Even so, Glaeser is at first reluctant to correlate expansion with education or vice versa. "Do highly skilled workers generate economic expansion or do well-educated individuals choose to live in more dynamic metropolitan areas?" he asks. To answer the question, Glaeser looked at the number of colleges per capita in metropolitan areas in 1940 to determine - and track - the rate of population growth between 1970 and 2000. He found that cities with twice as many colleges as similar areas in 1940 were more likely to grow at a rate that was 4 percent faster per decade after 1970. He concluded the findings were "powerful" evidence that the amount of skills a city's workers have can prompt higher growth rates. The study also shows that a population's skill levels have a greater impact on cold climate areas than warmer areas. Glaeser notes that the data suggest that foul weather cities cannot count on residents sticking around when their economy is not booming. "They are far more handicapped by skills deficits and they gain more from higher skills," he said. Glaeser also found that college education is a more "powerful predictor of population growth in a metropolitan area than the city itself." In other words, when highly educated workers move to a city, their affect on growth extends beyond that city into suburbs and other cities and towns in the same region. One way in which such employees affect a region is wages. Glaeser found that in areas where the share of college graduates rose by 10 percent, families' incomes also grew 10 percent faster than areas with fewer college grads. An influx of highly educated people also affects housing prices. In Massachusetts, for example, the municipalities with large numbers of college graduates also have posted the highest increases in home prices, the study said. But in Texas, where construction permits are granted far more readily, higher-skilled cities and towns have not experienced skyrocketing increases in housing prices. Some urban specialists say cities can change their growth patterns by attracting more skilled or highly educated people. That's one premise of Richard Florida, author of the book, "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming, Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life." "The nation's geographic center of gravity has shifted away from traditional industrial regions toward new axes of creativity and innovation," he writes. "The creative class is strongly oriented to large cities and regions that offer a variety of economic opportunities, a stimulating environment and amenities for every possible lifestyle." Meanwhile, Glaeser asserts that Boston has succeeded in that respect because it has been a magnet for the educated. Glaeser says, however, that the average creative person in cities like Boston is not necessarily a young artist. Instead, he says, they are established money earners and homeowners in their 40s and are more likely to live in the suburbs, he said. Oftentimes, these workers settle in the cities where they attended college. Glaeser says that kind of dynamic has given Boston an edge over other cold climate cities. To hold onto that advantage, he says, cities like Boston must invest in kindergarten through 12th grade public education because highly skilled workers want to live in communities with good schools. They must limit taxes, keep cities safe, and encourage the development of affordable housing for low- and middle-income workers, he continued. "Cities that cannot draw residents with their sunny weather need to be especially concerned about their population's skills," said Glaeser. "When economic trends turn against cold weather cities, they must have the skills to reinvent themselves." The downsizing craze that gripped the country over the last few years abated somewhat in April, said Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm. The Chicago company, which monitors job loss across the country, said corporate downsizing dropped to its lowest levels in almost five years last month. The cuts recorded in April totaled 57,861, down 40 percent from the monthly average for the first quarter of 2005. The April figure was the lowest since November 2000, when employers reduced their staffs by 44,152 jobs, said the report. "April was 33 percent lower than the 86,396 job cuts announced in March and 20 percent lower than the 72,184 cuts announced in April 2004," said the company. It said that those employed in industrial goods experienced the highest number of cuts, with 7,119 jobs scuttled by employers last month. Challenger also said that, on average, job cuts declined 55 percent in some industries. Among those industries reporting a drop in layoff activity were the aerospace and defense, computer, consumer products, government and nonprofit sectors. Diane E. Lewis can be reached at .
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