When I was living in London, my friend and then-flatmate Manic, who works in IT, once complained that Bristol had far better opportunities than London did for someone in his field. We asked him why he didn’t just move there. He talked about all the arts, culture and entertainment available in London that he wouldn’t be able to find in Bristol. In response, we pointed out to him that most of his leisure time comprised the same few pubs and Indian curry houses and playing Xbox, not London’s great museums or nightclubs. Upon further thought, he corrected himself: “all my family and friends are in London.”

Here are tales of some of my other friends:
• Jes in considering her choices for a medical fellowship stated that her main decision criteria were: 1) the quality of the hospital or research center, 2) warm weather and 3) cost of living. As she sought the best fellowship opportunity, criterion number 3 went by the wayside… hello D.C.!
• George, an investment banker, told me that his choices of where to live were confined to the centers of (now not so) high finance: New York, London and Tokyo. 
• One time when I was visiting New York, Betsey talked about all the world-class cultural amenities that NYC had compared to a smaller city like, well, Columbus. I asked her when was the last time she was in the museum in which we were having this conversation. Her answer: “mmm, when were you last in town?”

Whenever I visit family and friends in New York, I find myself doing a grand tour of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. People don’t have the time to venture far beyond their neighborhood. Or they don’t have the money to do what I’m interested in. Or they had enough of riding the subway for work.

With apologies to civic leaders around the country trying to attract YPs to their city, and to the likes of Richard Florida and Rebecca Ryan peddling their ideas, the cold hard truth is that there are two factors that matter far above the rest:
1) friends and family, either local or within an easy day trip’s driving distance
2) economic opportunity over risk
A third factor, especially for young people finishing college, may be a curiosity to try New York or San Francisco or somewhere else, though this interest is to varying degrees commingled with economic opportunity.

All the others factors - diversity, tolerance, quality of life, cultural amenities, cost of living, image and perception, walkability, transit, etc. – are secondary in making a location decision among large and medium-sized cities. Though once we have decided where to be, they take on greater importance.

Secondary? Jung, we talk about these things all the time. You’ve lost your mind.

The problem is that we discuss these factors in the abstract, a theoretical question of what attracts and retains YPs. For the moment, let’s forget about how we think other people make their location decisions. Why are YOU here? 

Maybe you’ve always been here and don’t care about living anywhere else. Maybe you grew up here, moved around a little, and came back to settle. Maybe you moved here for school, for a job, or following a significant other. It’s all about friends and family and/or economic opportunity. As for the other factors, it only matters that they’re good enough or tolerable. Or perhaps they’re other angles on the two main factors - for example, low cost of living equals low risk. 

At some point, I realized that I didn’t need to live in a huge city, because limited time, money and energy meant that I could only do a small fraction of all the fun to be had. And by then, I had already moved around enough that being close to family wasn’t a factor for me, and is still not for the time being. My best friends are also opportunity-driven nomads scattered around the country, so that hasn’t been a factor either.

When I was interviewing for my job here, I was also interviewing for a job in Portland. All my friends thought I should’ve moved to Portland. However, the better economic opportunity for me was Columbus, and while our fair city does not have light rail or an urban growth boundary or a hip image or a ridiculous number of local breweries, it has plenty enough in terms of arts, entertainment, and overall quality of life.

Economic opportunity brought me to Columbus, but I have no idea what will keep me here or pull me away. Maybe it’s further opportunity, or (I hope) a close group of new friends here. Maybe at some point I will feel a need to be closer geographically to my parents, or I’ll fall in love with someone who has her roots in Ohio. Those of you who know me, or have at the very least read some of my other writings on Indie Columbus, know that I care very much about civic matters and helping to improve the quality of life here. But ultimately, parks, museums, urban design, transit and cultural diversity are not going to be the factors that keep me or send me packing, unless they change improbably drastically for the better or worse. Survey your friends: the real reasons for why they’re here – and not in Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, etc. - are going to be friends and family, economic opportunity or a combination of both.