Smarter than the Average Bear, but not the Sharpest Tool in the Shed
January 11th, 2007 | by Eric Fidler | Published in General College Park | 4 Comments
When prospective national businesses look to a region and decide where to open shop, they consider many factors including taxes and rent. However, businesses that cater to sophisticated consumers will often consider a town’s education attainment level, too. What do these businesses see when they consider College Park? They see a town that is above the national and regional averages in educational attainment, but which still lags behind many of its neighbors.
We harvested demographic data from the 2000 U.S. Census and graphed them below. Since each number is a percentage of adults 25-years-old and older, the College Park figures exclude the vast majority of the student body. University Park, a popular bedroom community for faculty situated just south of campus, resembles Bethesda and McLean more than College Park.
January 11th, 2007 at 2:25 pm (#)
Wouldn’t that be the case in any college town? If you exclude the students then the people providing support for campus will dominate the population.
In terms of marketing, University Park and College Park share the same location. That would probably give us similar stats as Takoma Park, which might be an appropriate model for what’s possible in this area.
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January 11th, 2007 at 7:32 pm (#)
Sadly, businesses and investors that take only a cursory look at demographic data may unfairly discount College Park (CP). However, even if we include University Park (UP) with CP as one census geography, the numbers still don’t move much since UP, though well-educated, has only a fraction of the population.
The combined UP-CP numbers for adults 25 and older are as follows:
H.S. Diploma: 88.8%
Bachelor’s: 45.2%
Grad. & Professional: 22.5%
UP-CP would still trail behind Silver Spring and Takoma Park (excluding the h.s. diploma rates) but would move ahead of Greenbelt. Nonetheless, it would be mighty foolish for a business to discount College Park because of these numbers. What these numbers do not reflect is the fact that much of the student population is on the brink of holding the educational credentials that appeal to certain retailers and businesses. Furthermore, even more students and faculty spend much of their workdays in College Park and are not counted among the residents. When marketing College Park as a potential business location, one should tout this nuance which is lost among the Census data.
It will be a great day when students don’t have to trek to Silver Spring or Bethesda just to see even the slightest of off-beat films.
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January 11th, 2007 at 8:37 pm (#)
Yes, except the students aren’t here 4 months out of the year. The Hoff has off-beat films.
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January 12th, 2007 at 12:02 am (#)
Businesses don’t generally use the raw census data. Firms like Claritas crunch the numbers in a way that better categorizes the population. Some businesses also follow the lead of businesses known to look closely at the market such as IKEA which drawns a lot of people from a large area.
IKEA purchased a large tract of land for about $10 million, used about one-half and sold the balance for $20 million.
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