Boise attracts young, single, educated folks – Census report finds city is a magnet for this highly coveted group

A recent Census Bureau report shows Boise is one of the top magnets in the country for attracting young, college-educated residents. The high-tech industry and outdoor recreation opportunities are credited with attracting residents like Julie Anderson, 32, and Steve Pontello, 39, who work at ProClarity, a local software company.

Kim Hughes / The Idaho Statesman

• Top 15 metro areas http://www.idahostatesman.com/News/story.asp?ID=53286

Finding a young, college-educated Boisean is as easy as dialing the phone.

“We have a lot of people like that,” said Angie O´Hara, the public relations manager for ProClarity, a software firm. In fact, the 29-year-old O´Hara estimates three-quarters of the company´s 100 Boise-based workers fit that bill.

According to a recent Census Bureau report, the Boise metro area has one of the highest migration rates in the country for a highly sought-after group of people: young, single and educated.

Boise´s outdoor amenities and its high-tech industry make it a logical magnet for that group, said Alan Porter, an analyst for the state Commerce Department.

Continuing to attract and keep those residents could be key to the Treasure Valley´s future.

Boise ranked behind Portland and Denver in terms of net migration rate of residents age 25 to 39, not married and holding at least a bachelor´s degree. Net migration is defined as the number of people who came to the area minus those who left. The rate compares that number to overall population.

Boise´s net migration rate was higher than San Francisco and Seattle.

Steve Pontello, a 39-year-old consultant at ProClarity, grew up in Michigan, founded a company, sold it and used the proceeds to camp and fish around the West until he ran out of money. He ended up on the doorstep of Boise friends in 1993. His ability to land a good job as well as proximity to solitude and nature kept the bachelor here.

His co-worker, Julie Anderson, took a different road to Boise, but found the same things. She met her husband, a Boise native, while they were both working in Amsterdam. Anderson was used to an urban existence, having grown up in Sydney, Australia. But her husband, also a tech worker, told her Boise had a good combination of culture, recreation and small-town life.

Anderson now concurs. They moved here three years ago and have been married two years.

“You can afford to have a nice lifestyle and make the most of all the outdoor things Boise has to offer,” says the 32-year-old Anderson, a marketing communications manager.

Between 1995 and 2000, about 1,700 residents age 25-39, single and college educated left the Boise metro area. But almost 3,200 new residents of that demographic moved to town.

While those numbers are small, the Census Bureau report said the influence of the group is greater than its size would suggest.

Young people may increase the population by having kids. College-educated young people provide a measure of economic opportunity in an area, the report said, and an influx of such residents may mean they are willing to invest in areas and stimulate further economic development.

Shirl Boyce, vice president of the Boise Metro Economic Development Council, knows this group well. Boise is looking to attract the best and the brightest, he said; the kinds of people who someday will lead companies. Metro areas that successfully lure these people also will have an easier time filling jobs left when members of the baby boom generation start retiring.

Boyce and others cite Boise´s environment — a relatively mild climate with four seasons — and access to recreation like mountain biking and whitewater rafting as enticing carrots to dangle in front of the young and educated.

But with the area´s fast growth over the last decade, Boyce said it is important to maintain the quality of life here that attracts that demographic group.

Area leaders are talking about ways to reduce air pollution, establish better public transportation and maintain the health of neighborhoods. Those types of issues are of concern to Anderson and Pontello, too.

“It seems like it´s a fairly critical time in Boise,” said Anderson, whose first visit to the area was during a weather inversion that trapped dirty air above the valley floor.

Pontello worries that Boise will go the way of other cities where unchecked growth started to hurt the quality of life. He cites declining water levels in area reservoirs while lawns in town are sopping wet as one example.

“I feel like I´m watching a movie I already know the ending to,” Pontello said. While he likes that Boise offers a good job and proximity to the outdoors, the nature of some high-tech work will allow employees to work from more remote locations, away from the problems of a growing city.

“It´s getting easier and easier for me to leave,” Pontello said. “What´s going to keep me from moving to Montana?”

http://www.idahostatesman.com/News/story.asp?ID=53253