Copyright 2004 San Antonio Express-News San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
February 28, 2004, Saturday , METRO
SECTION: BUSINESS EXPRESS; Pg. 12H
LENGTH: 1742 words
HEADLINE: WORKPLACE ; Home of the brave ; San Antonio and cities like it are becoming more attractive to young, educated professionals.
BYLINE: Analisa Nazareno
BODY: Young, single and educated, Meredith Coppolo has lived and worked in a dozen cities across the United States.
Her first move was to Boston for a marketing job that had her setting up shop in different cities across the country every three months. She dropped everything to live in a hovel in New York City. Then she moved to Austin to help her sister start a business and to enjoy the youth culture there.
She never in her life imagined moving to family-values San Antonio. But here she is, working, living, and owning a house.
"I was not really excited about moving here, but it was a great opportunity businesswise," said Coppolo, 31, director of sales for San Antonio-based Billing Concepts.
Now that she's here, Coppolo is discovering the watering holes where more and more young urban professionals are congregating and getting involved in the city's efforts to make the city more attractive for others like her.
In the flush of the dot-com boom, when employers were paying premium wages to hire the best and brightest straight from college, they opened offices in the nation's top-tier cities to attract young and driven people like Coppolo.
In the aftermath of the bust, some companies have shut down. And many of the survivors are finding themselves paying more attention to their bottom line, concluding that second and third-tier cities like San Antonio are better for business.
So as employers leave costlier first-tier cities for more affordable metropolises, they're bringing with them the young, educated workers that smaller cities have long coveted. Some cities, like Fort Worth and Fresno, Calif., are even trying to recreate or revitalize "urban centers" that young people find attractive.
"If we look at what has happened since 2000 and even before that time, jobs were going to certain areas and people were going to where there were jobs," said Joel Kotkin, senior fellow at the Davenport Institute for Public Policy at Pepperdine University. "The suburbs is the first place that they're going. And the second place is second-tier cities."
Even during the boom years, smaller cities such as Naples, Fla.; Las Vegas; Charlotte; and Portland, Ore., were seeing greater proportions of young, educated people being drawn to them than to the big lights of New York, Boston or Los Angeles.
That's according to a Census 2000 special report, "Migration of the Young, Single and College Educated: 1995 to 2000."
And while the big cities were continuing to draw this group by the tens of thousands each year, they would also lose them by the tens of thousands each year.
"Places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. are swapping their young people, which is not necessarily a bad thing," said Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech University.
Lang said given that these cities have high costs of living and astronomical housing costs, "that they attract young people at all is a miracle. These cities have a draw for them."
For Coppolo, the draw was a "multisensory experience."
"In a city, I'm looking for art and culture. I'm looking for intelligent, stimulating people, great events and activities. I'm looking for outdoor life and recreation," she said. "I'm looking to be stimulated - all five senses."
And after a year and a half in San Antonio, Coppolo said, the city comes close to fulfilling most of her needs.
"In San Antonio, if I want something, I have to go out and find it," Coppolo said. "In Manhattan, whatever you're looking for falls in your lap."
One thing she can do in San Antonio that she couldn't do in any of the other cities is own a home.
"I love that I'm settled into my house," said Coppolo, who lives in the Terrell Heights neighborhood. "I have girlfriends in Boston and to buy the kind of house that I have here, they'd have to spend close to $500,000. And now that I'm settled in and involved in things here, I'm happy where I am."
The San Antonio Express-News owns the copyright to this story. For a full copy of this story, e-mail Analisa and she will send you a clip via e-mail or snail mail.
February 28, 2004, Saturday , METRO
SECTION: BUSINESS EXPRESS; Pg. 12H
LENGTH: 1742 words
HEADLINE: WORKPLACE ; Home of the brave ; San Antonio and cities like it are becoming more attractive to young, educated professionals.
BYLINE: Analisa Nazareno
BODY: Young, single and educated, Meredith Coppolo has lived and worked in a dozen cities across the United States.
Her first move was to Boston for a marketing job that had her setting up shop in different cities across the country every three months. She dropped everything to live in a hovel in New York City. Then she moved to Austin to help her sister start a business and to enjoy the youth culture there.
She never in her life imagined moving to family-values San Antonio. But here she is, working, living, and owning a house.
"I was not really excited about moving here, but it was a great opportunity businesswise," said Coppolo, 31, director of sales for San Antonio-based Billing Concepts.
Now that she's here, Coppolo is discovering the watering holes where more and more young urban professionals are congregating and getting involved in the city's efforts to make the city more attractive for others like her.
In the flush of the dot-com boom, when employers were paying premium wages to hire the best and brightest straight from college, they opened offices in the nation's top-tier cities to attract young and driven people like Coppolo.
In the aftermath of the bust, some companies have shut down. And many of the survivors are finding themselves paying more attention to their bottom line, concluding that second and third-tier cities like San Antonio are better for business.
So as employers leave costlier first-tier cities for more affordable metropolises, they're bringing with them the young, educated workers that smaller cities have long coveted. Some cities, like Fort Worth and Fresno, Calif., are even trying to recreate or revitalize "urban centers" that young people find attractive.
"If we look at what has happened since 2000 and even before that time, jobs were going to certain areas and people were going to where there were jobs," said Joel Kotkin, senior fellow at the Davenport Institute for Public Policy at Pepperdine University. "The suburbs is the first place that they're going. And the second place is second-tier cities."
Even during the boom years, smaller cities such as Naples, Fla.; Las Vegas; Charlotte; and Portland, Ore., were seeing greater proportions of young, educated people being drawn to them than to the big lights of New York, Boston or Los Angeles.
That's according to a Census 2000 special report, "Migration of the Young, Single and College Educated: 1995 to 2000."
And while the big cities were continuing to draw this group by the tens of thousands each year, they would also lose them by the tens of thousands each year.
"Places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. are swapping their young people, which is not necessarily a bad thing," said Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech University.
Lang said given that these cities have high costs of living and astronomical housing costs, "that they attract young people at all is a miracle. These cities have a draw for them."
For Coppolo, the draw was a "multisensory experience."
"In a city, I'm looking for art and culture. I'm looking for intelligent, stimulating people, great events and activities. I'm looking for outdoor life and recreation," she said. "I'm looking to be stimulated - all five senses."
And after a year and a half in San Antonio, Coppolo said, the city comes close to fulfilling most of her needs.
"In San Antonio, if I want something, I have to go out and find it," Coppolo said. "In Manhattan, whatever you're looking for falls in your lap."
One thing she can do in San Antonio that she couldn't do in any of the other cities is own a home.
"I love that I'm settled into my house," said Coppolo, who lives in the Terrell Heights neighborhood. "I have girlfriends in Boston and to buy the kind of house that I have here, they'd have to spend close to $500,000. And now that I'm settled in and involved in things here, I'm happy where I am."
The San Antonio Express-News owns the copyright to this story. For a full copy of this story, e-mail Analisa and she will send you a clip via e-mail or snail mail.
