Forbes Boots Metro Detroit From Top Cities For Young Professionals

METRO DETROIT, MI — The moment of fame lasted more than 15 minutes for three Metro Detroit communities, but barely, before the august business magazine Forbes admitted it had made an error and booted the Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills area from its Best Cities For Young Professionals 2017 list.

“Yesterday, we were made aware of an inaccuracy in our story,” Forbes wrote in an email to Patch. “We found that due to an error importing data, the initial version of the list was incorrect and some of the statistics cited regarding individual metro area were incorrect.”

Good for Forbes for admitting the error, but it kind of stinks for Warren, Troy and Farmington Hills. They’re all lovely communities with tons of jobs in the auto sector, and we think any young professional should want set up residence in any one of them. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

TELL US: So what if Forbes doesn’t think so, why do you think Warren, Troy, Farmington Hills and the rest of Metro Detroit are perfect places for young professionals to put down roots?

At least Forbes didn’t single out Warren, Troy and Farmington Hills. Also taken off the list were:

• Jacksonville, Florida
• Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
• Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, California
• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida
• St. Louis, Missouri
• Charleston-North Charleston, South Carolina

Michigan wasn’t slighted on the new list.

• Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas
• Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C., Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia
• Cambridge-Newtown-Framingham, Massachusetts
• Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee
• Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York
• Portland-Vancouver-Hillsborough

Some cities that retained their rankings after the data glitch was discovered saw their berths change, as well. For example, the old ranking had Salt Lake City in the No. 1 position. That honor now goes to the Seattle metro area.

In compiling the list, Forbes used six metrics, of which the median salary earned by college grads with less than five years of experience was the best predictor for whether a city would make the list. Another metric, rental affordability, was the least likely to predict whether a city would make the list.

The other metrics Forbes used are local unemployment rates, data on job growth and projections, networking opportunities and social outlook. Forbes ranked each of the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States using these metrics. Read more here on the metrics Forbes used to come up with the list.

The revised Top 25 list is as follows:

1. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Washington
2. Austin-Round Rock, Texas
3. Salt Lake City, Utah
4. San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, California
5. Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas
6. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
7. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, District of Columbia, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Columbus, OhioSUBSCRIBE
10. Raleigh, North Carolina
11. Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Indiana
12. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
13. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota, Wisconsin
14. Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, Massachusetts
15. Oakland-Hayward-Berkeley, California
16. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona
17. Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, Tennessee
18. Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan
19. Omaha-Council Bluffs, Nebraska, Iowa
20. Boise City, Idaho
21. Tie – Atlanta-Sandy-Springs-Roswell, Georgia, and Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York
23. Tie – Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Oregon-Washington, and San Diego-Carlsbad, California
25. Silver Spring-Frederick-Rockville, Maryland

Patch's Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this story.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images