Joel Kotkin writes,

Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.

Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated, precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be in the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes have been rising considerably faster than the national average.

Read the whole thing. I do have a softspot for Common Genius type stories.

Refutation expected from Richard Florida (one of my favorite bloggers, even though he takes the other side of this issue) in 5-4-3-2…

UPDATE: …blast-off!

How about a little wager to make things interesting? . Lets have a bet on which city-regions will perform best over the next decade measured by per capita income, innovations, and growth in wealth. I take my creativity index regions – San Fran, Austin, Seattle, Boston, Washington DC, plus NY and LA. Globally, I’ll take London, Toronto, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Stockholm. Joel can have his favorite places. I’ve made this offer to Joel before and I’ll make it again. I’m putting my money down now. Any takers?

I’ll take Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Fairfax, …whoa, there–you said regions? That doesn’t leave me much. Given that there are suburban enclaves as well as urban hip zones in all of these regions, maybe this is a silly argument.