Forbes Ranks Boston As America’s Smartest City
Boston’s collective ego gained a boost this week when Forbes ranked us the smartest city in America, beating out Pittsburgh, San Jose, and Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan, for the No. 1 spot.
Out of 380 metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S., the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metro area came out on top, with the area’s college-educated population jumping 32.2 percent since 2000, according to Forbes:
In the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metro area, 44.8% of the population has bachelor’s degrees or above, the fourth-highest concentration of brainpower in the nation, up 7.8 percentage points since 2000 on the strength of a 32.2% jump in its college-educated population.
The magazine laid out three criteria regarding growth rates and increases in college-educated residents to complete its ranking. With the majority of the cities on the list having high concentrations of colleges, it’s no surprise that Boston topped the chart with more than 80 colleges and universities calling the area home.
Beyond the criteria considered in the magazine’s ranking, now’s a good time to be reminded of the global thinkers who work among us, the power of ideas coming from our thought leaders, our medical researchers, our avid readers … we could go on and on (and we do), but perhaps the tell-tale sign is that even City Hall is getting a reboot with Jascha Franklin-Hodge as our new Chief Information Officer, Lauren Lockwood as our first-ever Chief Digital Officer, and Mayor Marty Walsh at the helm.
Brains, technology, and innovation might be the not-so-secret recipe for making the smartest city in the U.S. With all this on the rise, other smart cities may not take away the title any time soon. And that’s just fine if you ask us.
