WSTB

Here's a fascinating study from Richard Florida (he of the 'creative class' studies) regarding where people of varying levels of education are moving. No surprise: Highly-educated people are moving to places such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., etc. (this study focuses on metro areas, not central cities) and cities such as these are actually losing their less-educated citizens, who are moving out. Here in North Carolina, metro Charlotte and Raleigh/Cary (again, no surprise) are doing very well indeed, as are Durham/Chapel Hill and Asheville. In a very pleasant surprise, we see that Winston-Salem easily outpaces Greensboro/High Point (which has negative growth), although Winston-Salem's growth is at a much slower pace than Charlotte and Raleigh/Cary.

The study covers a one-year period: 2011-2012. There is an interactive map imbedded in this article; you can zoom in to see all the metro areas in NC (and everywhere else) and see the precise figures for each metro area:

http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/06/hig ... es/372065/

Thank you for sharing this. I've long thought this was happening (lower education workers moving away from Winston-Salem, while higher education workers are moving to Winston-Salem). From what my own research has revealed, it seems as if the city, chamber, and WSBI are telling low education workers to go back to school, start your own business, or leave. Don't expect Winston-Salem to offer massive incentives for employers that pay below the county average and invest almost nothing in their buildings. Winston-Salem is booming right now, but is booming in technology/engineering/research (jobs are available right now at almost every company in those categories), while also losing a net average 100+ low wage/low skill jobs a month. This is why the population growth in Winston-Salem is doing good, but is a little slow.

I expect this growth in higher education workers to accelerate in Winston-Salem, as the Innovation Quarter expands and becomes more attractive. It's great to be on the improving education side. As the article said, these cities will be the cities that thrive.

Greensboro is still fighting for jobs with low wages and low or no skills, which explains why they are losing so many higher education workers. As WSBI and the mayor of Winston-Salem will tell you, these jobs will continue to chase the cheapest places to be and are likely to leave your city in just a few years. There is nothing keeping a call center in your city. They can easily replace those workers in another city in just one day, if they find an even cheaper place to do business with good incentives.

Yes, and Winston-Salem is truly earning a national reputation as an Arts and Innovation city, and as such, attractions more and more members of the creative class.

Thanx for sharing this link!

I think that much of Greensboro's negative net migration is due to their being more of a traditional college town. Having limited higher payer jobs in technology, healthcare, etc., definitely plays to Greensboro's disadvantage, as having a strength in high paying sectors can help overcome the drain college graduates moving out.

If you look at different college towns, many of them have negative migration of bachelor or graduate level educated people. For example, Greensboro, Athens GA, State College PA, Blacksburg VA, Binghamton NY, and Gainesville FL all had negative net migration in those two top education tiers.

Now, some might argue that Winston-Salem is a college town as well, and that is true to some degree. However, I think it should be further qualified that Winston-Salem has transformed itself into a research town. We are out-competing Greensboro at attractive migrants in the highly educate graduate degree tier, but we still have negative migration at the bachelor level due to Wake, Salem, and WSSU grads moving out after they finish school. To truly become a national research center similar to Durham/CH or Austin TX, Winston-Salem needs to turn that bachelor level migration around into a positive gain.

That's really what I was trying to say. If you don't have jobs for those degrees, people with them will leave. And if jobs for people without a good education/skills leave, then so do those workers.

From what I'm reading in national articles and news stories in other cities, Winston-Salem is at a huge advantage with Wake Forest University. A top-25, research intensive, top of the list in technology transfer, private university! It appears as if companies are trying to save money by cutting R&D and depending on major research intensive universities to fill this. These universities have access to research funding and some of the top people in those fields.

Here's another Richard Florida study with very encouraging news: Center cities are growing faster than their suburbs in many of the nation's largest cities, including Raleigh and Charlotte. Unfortunately, this study covers only the nation's 51 largest cities, so Charlotte and Raleigh are the only NC cities included:

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/06/ ... bs/372656/

No surprise here: July 2013 estimates just released by the Census Bureau show Forsyth County's Hispanic and Asian populations surging:

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/hi ... b2370.html

Looks as if the GBJ hasn't heard Davidson County is in the W-S MSA (the WSJ acknowledged lack of all data for Davidson being complete).

New census estimates of city population show Winston-Salem's growth rate accelerating. The July 1, 2014 estimate stands at 239,269, a one-year increase of 1.12%:

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ce ... 5ce3f.html

Good news indeed! An increase of 2,640 people in a year in which the city did not annex any territory no doubt reflects the growing number of people living in all those new apartments and a movement, albeit slow, from the suburbs into the city.

After recently closing on my new (and first) house, that is some welcoming news. Make me feel like I made a good investment moving to Ardmore. I hope it continues!

Not to seem to down, but W-S seems to be lagging - Fayetteville is closing.

Huh? Fayetteville is the only major city in the state that had a decline in its population. And Cumberland County (Fayetteville, Fort Bragg and environs) saw its population decline this past year, too. So I don't understand why you say "Fayetteville is closing."
Winston-Salem may be lagging behind Charlotte and Raleigh, but we grew faster than the state as a whole this past year, and the state is growing faster than the nation as a whole.

What??? yadkinv.....seem down? Never!

True, but they are less than a meager 35k behind W-S. Oh, and while W-S grew at an ever so slight advantage over GSO that place is pulling away. These figures disappoint!