Omaha earned high marks from The Business Journals in its rankings of places for young adults to live, checking in at No. 12. Photo from keakins2 on Flickr.

The Business Journals have recently published results from a handful of noteworthy On Numbers surveys, providing a quantitative measure of how the cities of the Silicon Prairie stack up against other cities across the country in a few categories of interest. 

But, before we get down to the numbers, I’ll make a disclaimer: I haven’t delved into the statistics enough quite yet that I can speak on them with any sort of authority. So I’m not claiming causality or correlation, nor am I espousing any theories based on these numbers. I’m merely passing along some statistics that struck me as interesting and that I figured might provide good food for thought — and, perhaps, fodder for good conversation in the comment section below — for others. 

Most young college graduates

On Wednesday, The Business Journals published the results of a survey to determine the cities with the greatest concentration of young adults with bachelor’s degrees, which was measured by the percentage of a city’s population between the ages of 18-34 that has college degrees.

The top 10 was chock full of traditional tech startup hotbeds:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.
3. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.
4. Raleigh-Cary, N.C. 
5. Rochester, Minn.
6. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.
7. Durham-Chapell Hill, N.C.
8. Ithaca, N.Y.
9. Boulder, Col. 
10. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-N.J.-Penn.

Six Silicon Prairie cities cracked the top 50: No. 14 Columbia, Mo.; No. 17 West Des Moines, Iowa; No. 21 Iowa City, Iowa; No. 26 Lawrence, Kan.; No. 29 Kansas City, Mo. and No. 44 Omaha/Council Bluffs. Cedar Rapids, Iowa finished just outside the top 50, at No. 51. 

Best for young adults

On Monday, The Business Journals released rankings of the best cities for young adults. On Numbers analyzed 65 metro areas with populations of more than 800,000, looking for qualities that would appeal to workers in their 20s and early 30s. According to the Business Journals, “The study’s 10-part formula gave superior marks to places with strong growth rates, moderate costs of living, and substantial pools of young adults who are college-educated and employed.”

Again, we see several cities noted for strong entrepreneurial ecosystems that cracked the top 10:

1. Austin, Tex.
2. Houston
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Raleigh, N.C.
5. Dallas-Fort Worth
6. Boston
7. Oklahoma City
8. Salt Lake City
9. Seattle
10. Baton Rouge, La.

Omaha wasn’t far from that top 10, earning a No. 12 ranking in the category. Kansas City, the only other Silicon Prairie City large enough for inclusion in this particular survey, ranked No. 32.

Best for small businesses

One last survey of note came out in April, when The Business Journals ranked the best cities for the creation and development of a small business. For that, On Numbers “used a six-part formula to analyze the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, searching for the places that offer the best climates for small businesses.”

Once again, several of the usual suspects populated the top 10. 

1. Austin, Tex.
2. Oklahoma City
3. Charleston, S.C.
4. Charlotte, N.C.
5. Seattle
6. Tulsa, Okla.
7. Raleigh, N.C.
8. Denver
9. Washington, D.C.
10. New York

In those rankings, the Silicon Prairie was represented by a pair of top-30 cities: No. 16 Des Moines and No. 30 Omaha. Kansas City checked in at No. 70.