Top 10 Smartest Cities In America 2014: Boston Is Big On Brainpower

It should come as no surprise that Boston has been named the smartest city in America, and Pittsburgh managed to secure  second place for smartest large cities.

Boston is big on brainpower, outranking Washington, Seattle, and New York, a list dominated by cities with major colleges and universities former industrial cities that have transitioned to knowledge-based economies.

Overall, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metro area ranked No. 1 on the “America’s Top 100 Smartest Cities” list, followed by the onetime “steel city” of Pittsburgh at No. 2, and the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA metro area was No. 3 in the survey.

Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich., metropolitan area ranked 4th among the top 100 Smartest Cities in the U.S. in an analysis that examines which metropolitan areas are gaining brainpower in the 21st Century.

Washington, D.C., and neighboring Virginia suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria ranks fifth on our list, followed in sixth place by neighboring Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Md.

To compile its list, Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill at Forbes examined America’s 380 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) based on 3 criteria:

1. Growth rate in the number of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree living in these metro areas from 2000 and 2013 (accounting for 25% of the final score)

2. The percentage point increase in each metro area’s college-educated population over that span (accounting for 50% of the final score)

3. Share of college-educated people in 2013 (accounting for 25% of the final score)

Here are the top 10 smartest cities in America:

1: Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 44.8%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 7.8 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 32.2%

No. 2: Pittsburgh, PA

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 32.2%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 8.8 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 37.3%

No. 3: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 46.7%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 6.8 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 32.9%

No. 4: Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 30.6%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 7.9 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 92.7%

No. 5: Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 48.7%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 6.2 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 44.9%

No. 6: Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 36.8%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 7.6 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 40.8%

No. 7: Raleigh, NC

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 43.7%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 6.1 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 78.7%

No. 8: San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 45.3%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 6.4 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 30.8%

No. 9: Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 39.4%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 6.7 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 47.9%

No. 10: New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA

Share Of Population That Is College-Educated, 2013: 37.4%
Increase In Share Since 2000: 7.1 percentage points
Increase In College-Educated Population Since 2000: 37.9%