Posts Tagged ‘Stamford’

Trending: Where The Kids Move Back In

Tuesday, June 18, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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Of all the metropolitan statistical areas in the nation, ours has the highest percentage of young adults who move back in with their parents, according to a study released last summer.

Across the country, 24 percent of adults between the ages of 20 and 34 lived with their parents between 2007 and 2009, as the Great Recession greatly affected job opportunities and outlook for young Americans. That’s a significant increase over the rate of the previous generation; in 1980, 17 percent of adults in that age bracket still called their mom and dad’s place home.

But 24 percent is child’s play compared to the rate here. In Fairfield County, 34 percent of millennials between the ages of 25 and 29 still lived with their parents, according to an August 2012 study. At one-in-three instead of the one-in-four national rate, the county surpassed every other metropolitan statistical area in the nation. And compared to the MSA with the smallest percentage (which you’ll find lower in this post), The FC has four times as many millennials staying at home.

There are a variety of reasons that contribute to this. In a blog post last summer, the Atlantic Cities posited that our MSA “boasts the highest percentage of young people living at home (34 percent) thanks to its relatively high rate of unemployment (8 percent) and low marriage rate (29 percent).” You remember that low marriage rate, right? We wrote about it a few months ago, explaining that our area has one of the latest marriage ages in the nation.

The marriage age is likely to be linked to this on the other end of the spectrum as well. For example, Prov0-Orem, Utah is tied for the seventh lowest rate of young adults living under their parents’ roof, and Utah has the youngest median age of first marriage for both men and women, at 25.5 for men and 23.3 for women.  Check out the metro areas with the smallest share of kids boomeranging back.

Trending: Where Grads Go On

Monday, June 17, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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nt0614bethelhs-2045It’s high school graduation week! Twelfth graders across the state will be crossing the stage this weekend to grab their diplomas and begin a new chapter of their lives. And for most of the students in Southwestern Connecticut, that next stage includes a four-year college.

According to data from the State Department of Education, about two in three students (66.3 percent) of students graduating from the public high schools in our area will be heading off to a four-year school after they depart their hometown high schools. Of those who are moving on, the greatest share will head to private colleges out of state. In 2010, the most recent year for which data was available, about 29 percent of Southwestern Connecticut high school grads headed off to such schools. Six percent tried out private colleges in state, while 20 percent entered Connecticut’s public college network and about 12 percent made their way to public schools in other states.

In total, Southwestern Connecticut sends more of its alums on to four-year schools than the state as a whole. According to the education department’s database, a total of 57.4 percent of Connecticut’s graduating class of 2010 went on to four-year colleges.

Check out which high schools have the highest share of graduates going on to four-year colleges:

As you scroll through the slideshow, you may notice the difference between where certain schools are sending their grads. For example, each of the 11 high schools with the highest percentage of high school graduates heading off to college have a heavy leaning toward sending their kids to private schools out of state, while most others send the majority of these graduates to in-state public schools. In fact, other than the top 11 high schools in this ranking, there are only two others where the greatest share of college-bound kids head off to such schools: Westhill High School and the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering, both located in Stamford.

You may also notice that perennial school-chart topper Darien is nowhere to be found in the slideshow. It’s not a snub. For some reason, the State Department of Education doesn’t have 2010 listed for the Blue Wave. But if their 2009 report is any indicator, the school would have just missed the top 5, coming in at No. 6 with 89.4 percent of students heading off to four-year colleges, and 70.3 percent of those kids going to private schools out of state.

 

Trending: Where the Single Dads Live

Friday, June 14, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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Fathers across the nation have stepped up the amount of time they dedicate to raising their children, when compared to dads from previous generations — a trend you can read all about in Sunday’s newspaper. But while the typical dad has tripled the number of hours he spends caring for his children every week since 1965, there’s still one group of dads that tends to surpass all the others in the amount of time they devote to their young ones: Single dads.

Across Southwestern Connecticut, there are thousands of homes where a single father is the only caregiver for children under the age of 18. Check out how common it is in your town here:

Trending: Where the Living’s Expensive

Saturday, June 8, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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A new report, capturing cost of living for the first quarter of 2013, shows that Stamford is the seventh most expensive city in the nation.

Sort of.

The cost of living index, compiled by the Council for Community and Economic Research, found that Stamford is 45.6 percent more expensive than the average American city when the cost of consumer goods and services are calculated. That puts The City That Works behind places like New York City, Honolulu, San Francisco and San Jose, but it’s not a game of absolutes, according to Dean Frutiger, project manager for the council.

10Stamford“It’s an index,” Frutiger said Thursday. “These numbers are relative to the complete amount of data submitted … and our data comes from volunteers on the ground in 300 participating communities.”

The communities included all have populations of more than 50,000 people and volunteers willing to do the legwork, so there are many places that could potentially push Stamford lower on the list that simply aren’t included, like nearby Greenwich, which is known to be quite a bit more expensive, or Key West Florida.

“Key West, that’s not in there. They would skew the data way high,” said Frutiger.

So Stamford may not necessarily be the seventh most expensive city in the country, but that doesn’t mean residents here aren’t spending more than their counterparts in other parts of the country. The index includes six different categories, like groceries, transportation, housing and other basics. After computing the cost of all those categories, the council creates a final index score for every participating city. Stamford’s is 145.6.

The national average is 100, which happens to be the exact number given to Little Rock Arkansas, meaning residents of that city, on average, pay the American middle ground for their goods and services.

For example, a T-Bone steak in Little Rock would cost a resident $10,23, according to data from the council. Here in Stamford, a resident would have to pay $11.77 for that same steak. It could be worse though. In Manhattan, where the 227.1 index number is the highest in the nation, that steak would cost $14.64. In the nation’s “least expensive” city, Harlingen, Texas, that steak would go for $8.50.

But it’s about more than steaks. Rent in Harlingen costs an average of $642 a month, compared with $790 in Little Rock. But move on up to Stamford, and the going rate is $2,033 – which is still a little less than half of Manhattan’s $3,958 rental rate.

“Relative to New York City, Stamford is a bargain,” said Mike DeSenne, senior editor for Kiplinger.com, who published an analysis on the council’s data earlier this week. “It might not feel that way, but it is.”

In Kiplinger’s earlier report, the media outlet labeled Stamford as the nation’s fifth most expensive place to live, after clustering No. 1 Manhattan, No. 2 Brooklyn and No. 5 Queens all into one city.

While Frutiger said it might come as a bit of a shock to residents that the city is so high up on the list, he noted that it really shouldn’t.

“Stamford has consistently been in the top 10,” he said. “This isn’t radical to us. It might be a shock for people to see their hometown on here, but it’s nothing new.”

maggie.gordon@scni.com; 203-964-2229; http://twitter.com/MagEGordon; http://facebook.com/TrendingWithMaggieGordon

Trending: Where We Buy Our Coffee

Friday, June 7, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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170104944Earlier this week, Boston.com ran an interesting map showing who pledges their allegiance to Starbucks versus Dunkin’ Donuts. Not surprisingly, the map revealed that New York City’s wealthy enclaves preferred their Starbucks brews, while most of Massachusetts leaned toward the locally founded Dunks.

It made us wonder: What would happen here in Southwestern Connecticut, where we can’t quite decide if we’re in a New York state of mind, or repping New England. (Red Sox or Yankees? Giants or Patriots? So many decisions!)

The answer is this: SWCT runs on Dunkin’. According to Trending analysis, there are 126 Dunkin’ Donuts in our region, which makes them roughly three times as common as Starbucks, of which there are 43. Check out the maps (then keep reading, ’cause that’s when it gets good.)

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Of all the towns and cities in Connecticut, Stamford has the most Starbucks, with six separate locations, followed by Greenwich with four. On the Dunkin’ Donuts side, no one has more than Bridgeport, where there are 13 coffee shops scattered throughout the city. And no, in case you were wondering, Bridgeport has still not added a single Starbucks to its stock.

But with blue-collar Dunks outweighing upper-middle-class Sbux on a roughly 3:1 ratio, we found a couple towns with ratios that just don’t make sense — unless you know the towns.

Of all the towns with more than one of each coffee shop, there are only three where there are as many Starbucks shops as there are Dunkin’ Donuts shops. There’s glitzy Greenwich, wealthy Westport, and affluent Orange, which have four, three and two of each shop, respectively.

There’s also one of each in a few towns: Newtown; Darien; Ansonia; New Canaan; Wilton; and New Fairfield.

Trending: Why We’re Driving Less

Wednesday, June 5, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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After decades of faithful attachment to our cars, using vehicles for everything from driving to work to lulling babies to sleep, Americans’ habits are shifting.

From 1970 on, the number of miles Americans traveled in their cars, trucks and SUVs increased by about 1.8 percent every year, as the attachment grew steadily — until 2004 when the average distance driven fell for the first time, according to Ben Davis, a policy analyst with Pioneer Group and author of the non-profit’s recent report “Transportation and the New Generation.”

Since 2004, the amount of miles driven by the typical American has decreased by 6 percent. While the shift can be seen in most age brackets, the millennial generation seems to be responsible for the largest share of the decline, Davis said.

“Back 30 and 40 years ago, people wanted to move out to the suburbs. The American Dream was a suburban area with a white picket fence and all of that,” Davis said this week.

“Now younger people want to live downtown, in places where they can walk, where there’s a lot going on, and there are friends within walking distance,” he said. “That’s not to say there aren’t people who live in suburbs, but there is a shift.”

Here in Southwestern Connecticut, a generational difference is easy to see in many towns.

Take Fairfield, for example. The suburban neighborhood with a buzzing downtown district and close proximity to Metro-North’s railroads has the largest generational shift in the region: While 74.7 percent of employed Fairfield residents between ages 45 and 54 drive to work, only 48 percent of 16-24 year olds do so. That leaves a 26.7 percent gap between the generations.

Stamford has the second largest gap, followed by Redding and Bridgeport.

There are several reasons for the change. Between 2001 and 2009, the number of miles traveled by 16-34 year olds on public transit increased by 40 percent, and they were more likely to ride bicycles to work, citing the environment and fitness as reasons for their choices, according to Davis.

Then there’s technology.

A study published by the car-sharing company Zipcar earlier this year declared that millennials are likely to place more value on their phones than their cars — if they have a car. According to the findings, 65 percent of millennials say losing their phone or computer would have a greater negative impact on their daily lives than losing their car. And one in four members of the generation said transportation apps on their phones have reduced their driving frequency; that’s twice the rate of those over age 45.

“There are some people who have totally dropped a car and they don’t even know how to drive. But I think what technology and a few other things have done is instead of a car being the sole way of transportation, it’s become one option for many people,” Davis said.

For 23-year-old Nicole Portera, who moved from her native Fairfield to Milford a year ago, and takes the train to work in New York City every day, leaning on mass transportation simply gives her the ability to use that technology to complete tasks ‑ and even get some needed relaxation.

“I like that I can read or take a nap or answer emails, things I couldn’t do if I was driving,” said Portera. “I also really hate traffic to the point where if I am driving somewhere and there’s traffic I’ll take back roads to get to where I’m trying to get to. I don’t have to deal with that when I’m on the train.”

In addition to using commuting times to multitask, the technology itself is curbing the need to be onsite for work and social reasons. Now apps such as Facetime, and websites such as Facebook mean people can be social without being in the same spot. And the Zipcar study found that 47 percent of millennials sometimes opt to spend time with their friends online instead of driving to see them.

danburyThat’s no surprise to Brandon Dufour, general manager of All-Star Driver, a Connecticut-based driving school with more than 60 locations.

“I’m 30 now, and I remember clearly the day I turned 16,” Dufour said. “I went to the DMV and waited in line for my permit. And that’s pretty rare now. There aren’t many 16 year olds that are doing that.”

In 1983, 46.2 percent of 16-year-olds and 68.9 percent of 17-year-olds had their licenses, according to a recent study written by Michael Sivak, director of the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan. In 2008, those numbers dropped to 31.1 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Over the past several years, Dufour said he has noticed his teenage clients beginning the driving process a couple years later, at 18 or 19. Sure, there’s the technology factor, he said, with teens having less of a need to drive themselves since “their mom or dad is willing to drive them when they need to go somewhere, and when they don’t need to go somewhere, they have plenty of alternatives to help them be social.”

Dufour also attributes some of the change to the new driving laws, which went into effect in 2008.

The new laws in Connecticut mandate that drivers under age 18 log 40 hours of on-the-road training before receiving their license, and limits who can be in the car with them after they become licensed.

“Having a driver’s license was once seen as a mark of passage from being a teenager to putting one foot into the adult world,” said Bill Seymour, a spokesman for the Connecticut DMV.

“You were driving an expensive vehicle, and it was taking you places far beyond the immediate zone of your home. You were often alone in the car, or you were taking friends in the car. And it was that major step toward freedom,” Seymour said. “With the graduated driver’s licensing laws and some of the other restrictions such as no electronic devices, you really cut out the perception of it as being a right to passage, and it’s more like a hurdle that you have to get across. There are a lot of hurdles involved.”

As a result, Dufour said his company is “educating more 18 and 19 year olds now than we are 16 and 17 year olds,” signifying a big shift from years past.

And while the drop is most significant among younger drivers, with the average annual number of miles driven by 16-34 year olds decreasing from 10,300 in 2001 to 7,900 in 2009, it’s not strictly a phenomenon for younger people.
Charles Glaser, 70, lives in downtown Stamford and has traded in driving for walking and using his bicycle whenever he can. As an actor, he spends a good portion of his time commuting for auditions, which includes walking a few blocks, hopping on a train and hoofing it through Manhattan.

“If I didn’t have to have a car, I wouldn’t have a car,” said Glaser, who keeps his minivan so he can visit his children in Weston about once a week.

“I walk to the library. I walk to Tiernan’s, to the post office, to the Government Center, to the bank. I can walk everywhere,” he said. “I have to drive to the grocery store because it’s a mile away. But other than that, I enjoy walking.”

While Glaser makes it a point not to be reliant on his car, people in his age group are still more likely to drive themselves to work on a daily basis than younger folks. About 77 percent of Southwestern Connecticut residents over age 65 drive every day, compared with 65 percent of 16-24 year olds, according to census data.

And it seems the younger folks will continue this trend, altering the fabric of post-war American life, said Davis.

“We need to understand what this trend means and plan accordingly. We shouldn’t just keep building infrastructure, assuming the number of miles we travel will increase forever,” he said. “It probably won’t.”

maggie.gordon@scni.com; 203-964-2229; http://twitter.com/MagEGordon; http://facebook.com/TrendingWithMaggieGordon

 

Trending: Where the Workers Flock To

Monday, June 3, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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168951798Roughly 1.1 million people rest their heads on pillows in Southwestern Connecticut every night, but during the day, there are another 400,000 people occupying the area, as the region swells with employees who commute to work at local businesses, proving that the area can no longer be called a cluster of bedroom communities.

According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week, Southwestern Connecticut’s daytime population totals 1,498,167 people, an increase of 36.4 percent over the actual resident totals. Much of the growth is seen in the lowest corners of Fairfield County, where the town of Greenwich grows by 57 percent for a total daytime population of 95,970 people.

“I think this attests to the robust business community, and the attraction of Greenwich as a desirable place to work,” said Marcia O’Kane, executive director of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce. “That is a tremendous showing of those who are coming here, and it just attests to Greenwich as a strong workplace.”

O’Kane said it’s likely that the financial services industry accounted for a lot of the town’s growth in the working hours, as members of that sector make their way to local hedge fund headquarters. In total, roughly one in four employed Greenwich residents works in finance, insurance or real estate, making it the most common industry classification in the town, according to census documents.

But while Greenwich has the second highest percent increase of people filling its borders during the day, behind Wilton, which grows by 67 percent, neighboring Stamford has the greatest increase when measuring sheer numbers. The self-named “City That Works” grows by 48,284 in the daytime, to a total of a little more than 170,000 bodies during the work day, according to the census.

“I never worry about competing with Greenwich,” said Stamford’s director of economic development, Laure Aubuchon. “I think, while it’s a lovely place to live and to work if you’re a hedge fund or a smaller business, I think Greenwich has steadily lost its headquarter companies.”

By comparison, Aubuchon touted Stamford’s laundry list of global companies with roots in Stamford, which she said have attracted others to the city.

“I think if you have one name brand come here, it causes people to say, ‘Well, wait a minute. If UBS or RBS or GE Capital is there, then it’s a good financial services place,’” she said. “It causes other people to say wow, and you have the CEOs that golf with each other asking where others are headquartered and where their offices are.”

So the corporate locations and relocations snowball, she said.

And while New York City was once seen as the center of the universe for those who live in Connecticut’s shoreline neighborhoods, that’s no longer the case. Each of the 31 towns in Southwestern Connecticut sees its population grown between 9 a.m. and the 5 o’clock whistle, with Ansonia experiencing the smallest growth, at 12.8 percent, and Wilton experiencing the largest.

Of course, New York City is still a magnet for many, as crowded trains and highways show that thousands upon thousands of Nutmeggers are crossing the state line to work in the Big Apple. In total, the census report shows that New York County grows by an astounding 94.7 percent during the daytime work hours, giving it a larger shift between resident- and commuter-adjusted populations in the nation.

None of Southwestern Connecticut’s towns are poised to reach that kind of level in coming years, but Aubuchon said that’s just fine.

“More people are coming in than are leaving, and I think that’s a real indication of where we’re at here. And I see that number certainly holding its own, if not growing more,” she said.

Maggie.gordon@scni.com; 203-964-2229; http://twitter.com/MagEGordon; http://facebook.com/TrendingWithMaggieGordon

Trending: Who Earns Advanced Degrees

Wednesday, May 29, 2013 by:Maggie Gordon
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Southwestern Connecticut has one of the highest rates of residents with advanced degrees in the nation, a trend that has only grown throughout the recent recession.

Nationally, 10.6 percent of adults over age 25 hold a graduate degree, but in Southwestern Connecticut, census figures show 18.3 percent of the population has that level of education, with some towns claiming double that saturation. Easton, for example, has the highest percentage of residents with a graduate or professional degree, at 37.5 percent, followed by Weston at 37.3 percent and Darien and New Canaan at 36 percent.

“The master’s degree is the new bachelor’s degree,” said Kathy Dilks, executive director of graduate admissions at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

“There are more programs that require the entry level master’s degree, just to break into the field,” she said.

While advanced degrees were once an elite rarity, they are becoming the norm with an ever increasing share of the population adding hoods and velvet stripes to their graduation robes. Back in 1990, only 5.9 percent of Americans held advanced degrees, along with 9.2 percent of Connecticut residents. But an overall trend in increasing education has shifted that enormously in recent years.

In total, Connecticut has the fourth-highest percentage of residents who have earned an advanced degree of all states in the nation, at 15.7 percent, which puts it behind Washington, D.C., at No. 1 with 29.2 percent, Massachusetts at No. 2 with 16.8 percent, and Maryland at No. 3 with 16.5 percent.

While there are several local towns with higher-than-average percentages of residents with advanced degrees, only five of Southwestern Connecticut’s 31 towns and cities have a lower saturation of these residents than the national average. Bridgeport has the lowest saturation of highly educated citizens in the area at 5.3 percent, followed by Ansonia at 6.5 percent and Naugatuck at 8.6 percent.

Even in Bridgeport, there has been growth as of late. In 2005, there were more than 1,000 fewer people with advanced degrees in the Park City, where the total saturation was 4.1 percent.

According to local college admissions officials, much of the recent increase experienced here in Southwestern Connecticut can be attributed to the recession, when young adults fresh out of undergraduate programs found an unwelcoming job market and sought refuge in graduate programs.

“We definitely saw a rise in the recession, and now we’re starting to see it slip,” said Marianne Gumper, director of graduate admissions at Fairfield University.

At the beginning of the recession, Fairfield’s graduate population was split, with 25 percent of students attending full time and 75 percent attending part time.

“A year ago, we were up to 35 percent full time and 65 percent part time. Now we’re running at about 30-70, so we’re starting to see it slip,” Gumper said, pointing out that overall numbers are still trending upward.

“I think it was definitely recession-driven. They couldn’t get jobs, and for those who were fortunate to afford it, they would say, `OK. I’ll sit out this recession. I can’t get a job, so I’ll go back to grad school,’ ” she said.

The number of young graduates who found themselves without a career prospect during the recession reached a historic high. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for young college graduates reached 10.4 percent in 2010, a figure that trumped the peaks of any recession since the 1980s. It has since declined a bit to 8.8 percent, which is still significantly higher than the 5.7 percent unemployment rate that demographic experienced just before the recession began in December of 2007.

“Graduate educations work inversely with recessions,” said Gumper, and in Fairfield’s case, the Great Recession brought greater enrollment numbers than the university had experienced.

Overall, about 25 percent of young adults who graduate with a bachelor’s degree typically go on to graduate school, said Andrea Koncz, employment information manager for The National Association of Colleges and Employers. But during the recession years, Koncz said those numbers reached 27 and 28 percent.

Fairfield’s Gunther said the end of the recession is bringing a little normalcy back to the numbers as students are able to find more hope in the traditional job market.

The NACE reported in April that the job outlook for students earning a bachelor’s degree is better this year than it was at this time in 2012. According to the report, employers plan to hire about 2.1 percent more recruits than last year.

“Last year, they were increasing about 10 percent,” said Koncz. The association has reported better hiring outlooks every year since 2010, after a 21.6 percent dip in 2009.

But even as the economy teeters toward stabilization, the number of people seeking advanced degrees is likely to continue on an upward trajectory, according to Julia Kent from the Council of Graduate Schools.

There are many professions for which a master’s degree has become an entry-level degree, according to Kent, who added that “30 years ago a bachelor’s degree may have been adequate, but that is no longer the case in many fields.”

At Sacred Heart, Dilks said she sees enrollment numbers continuing to increase, as the university adds programs and the general understanding that a graduate degree can increase employability and earnings potential permeates society — recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the unemployment rate for people with a master’s degree is 3.6 percent, compared with 4.9 percent for bachelor’s degree holders and 9.4 percent for high school graduates.

“I’m hoping it’s not just the recession that is to blame for all of our increases,” Dilks said. “I hope we’re genuinely offering programs that the office place needs, and so far we seem to be doing pretty well.”

maggie.gordon@scni.com; 203-964-2229; http://twitter.com/MagEGordon; http://facebook.com/TrendingWithMaggieGordon

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