Three Louisiana cities — Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport — have landed in a recent list of the 25 best cities for fresh college graduates.
According to The Daily Beast website’s rankings — the numbers were crunched by a team of experts; new urbanist author Richard Florida wrote the accompanying article — Baton Rouge is 15th, New Orleans stands 16th and Shreveport holds 20th in the list, which categorizes cities by their population, the percent of their population between the ages of 22 and 24, the cost of living index, the percent of housing units for rental, the unemployment rate and the average per-capita personal income.
“The cities that land among the top 25 have relatively low unemployment, high average salary per capita, a low cost of living, a high portion of housing units devoted to rental properties, and a large population between ages 22 and 24,” Florida writes.
Six percent of people in Baton Rouge are between the ages of 22 and 24, with 32 percent of housing units for rental, the article says. The New Orleans population holds 3.8 percent of people between within the age group, with 34 percent of its housing units for rental, while 3.9 percent of Shreveport’s population is 22-24 and 35 percent of its housing units are rental.
The highest unemployment rate of the three cities is in Baton Rouge, which has an 8.2 percent rate, according to the statistics, as opposed to New Orleans’ 7.9 percent and Shreveport’s 7.2 percent. New Orleans, however, has the largest population — more than 1 million — while metro Baton Rouge has nearly 800,000 residents and Shreveport trails with roughly 400,000 people.
According to Florida, the top five best cities for new college graduates are Fayetteville, N.C.; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City, Okla..; Austin, Texas; and Houston, respectively. The South, the rankings show, has lower costs of living, more bursting job growth potential and more money in average earnings.
The article draws from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, C2Er, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau.
To read the full text of the Daily Beast article and view the slideshow of the 25 cities, go here.
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