N.Y.: Upstate 'brain gain' lacking

N.Y.: Upstate 'brain gain' lacking

	Published : Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:49 By : Agencies Print this Story

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Add 'brain gain' to the list of upstate New York's woes.

A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed upstate leaders worried about the 'brain drain' of college-educated adults should be more concerned about the opposite problem: failure to attract new arrivals.

If upstate New York were its own state, it would have had the nation's lowest 'in-migration' rate from 1995 through 2000. College-educated adults are simply not moving to the region fast enough to counter the natural outflow of people, according to the report from economist Richard Deitz of the Fed's Buffalo branch.

'When you are competing for the educated workforce, these are people who have choices about where they want to live,' said Deitz, the report's author. 'The question is: Are we making a competitive offer to those people?'

The exodus of educated young people has long preoccupied policy makers looking to boost the upstate economy. Even as the report was being released, Gov. Eliot Spitzer was in Syracuse talking about a housing project that would help 'make ourselves a place where our kids want to stay, and our kids' kids want to stay.'

But Deitz found upstate New York's out-migration rate of college-educated people was close to the national median in those five years. The region really lags in attracting college-educated people. Upstate New York is behind not only fast-growing southeastern states like Nevada and Arizona in 'brain gain,' but behind Rust Belt states like Ohio and Michigan.

College graduates tend to be highly mobile, settling where they can find the best job in a place with the nicest weather, schools and other amenities, Deitz notes. He suggested a combination of factors could play into the area's brain gain problems, including jobs that don't pay enough to attract people and the perception that the area is not a desirable place to live.

Upstate New York is dogged by image problems, from jokes about snowy Buffalo to the perception that its old industrial cities are decaying.

The Spitzer administration, which hired special upstate economic development 'czar' Daniel Gundersen, had no immediate comment on the report.

Researchers looked at 2000 Census data and defined upstate New York as the 49 counties left after excluding New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley up to Dutchess and Orange counties. While the five-year period under study ended in 2000, Deitz believes the trends were continuing.