In today's WSJ Opinion Journal, Kotkin says...

For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban developers have focused on the "young and restless," the "creative class," and the so-called "yuspie"--the young urban single professional. Cities, they've said, should capture this so-called "dream demographic" if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain and enjoy the fastest and most sustained growth.

This focus--epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's risible "Cool Cities" initiative--is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.

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...

The rest of the article can be read at... http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010911