Fairfield County is moving closer to breaking the top 10 in a listing of places best-suited for young professionals.
Forbes magazine just named the county, via the metropolitan statistical area that includes Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk, as the 12th-best American city for people ages 24 to 34 with bachelor”™s degrees or higher. Nearly 45 percent of workers in Fairfield County have bachelor”™s degrees.
In addition to using college education, the magazine also considered unemployment rates, job growth projections, the number of businesses with fewer than 500 employees as well as large ones, median salaries and cost of living.
According to Forbes, the median salary in Fairfield County is $63,600, the cost of living index is 136.9, the average yearly job growth is 2 percent, there is one large company for every 910 people and one small company for every 42.36 people.
The list of 15 cities in ascending order from first place are:
Ӣ Des Moines, Iowa
Ӣ Raleigh, N.C.
Ӣ Omaha, Neb.
Ӣ Salt Lake City
Ӣ Madison, Wisc.
Ӣ Boise City, Idaho
Ӣ Provo, Utah
Ӣ Austin, Texas
Ӣ Denver
Ӣ Minneapolis-St. Paul
Ӣ San Jose, Calif.
Ӣ Fairfield County
Ӣ Seattle
Ӣ Oklahoma City
Ӣ San Francisco
This is very interesting, however I’m not surprised. Many of the graduate students attending Manhattanville’s School of Business live and/or work in Fairfield County. These young professionals are smart to value the convenience of living near their place of employment while being so close to NYC and the opportunities to further their education right in their backyard.