11 Signs a City Will Succeed...#7...

James Fallows recently wrote a fascinating article in The Atlantic based on research conducted by he and his wife.  The article lays out 11 key factors that seem to point to the success of a city.

Read the entire article here.

This set of posts offers musings on each of the 11 signs.

#7..."They have, and care about, a community college"...

I must admit, of all 11 predictors, this one was by far the most surprising to me.  It is certainly the one that caught me the most off guard.

And yet, as I internalize what would seem to lie behind this sort of predictor, I value what it seems to me to point towards.

And what does it seem to point towards?

A vibrant, thriving city needs people who are being stretched and grown at all levels of society.

Proximity to a research university provides great things, but those things are largely segregated towards a certain portion of the population.  Pairing the research university with a cared about community college represents a more complete ladder for a larger portion of society to be climbing on together.

I must also admit that I have largely been biased towards large research-type universities and haven't given much attention or credit to what a community college offers.  A community college's presence in a list of predictors of a successful city opens my eyes to the fact that I need to respect and value the community college.