Forbes Fixes Flub: Nashville Now Among Best Cities For Young Professionals

NASHVILLE, TN — Nashville, given its current cachet, was a surprise omission when Forbes released its annual list of the best cities for young professionals. Here's no surprise, though: journalists, even ones that work for Forbes, often struggle with mathematics.

Turns out there was a data error when Forbes made its calculations and when the error was corrected, Nashville jumped back in the Top 25 — up to No. 17, in fact — and seven cities dropped off the list altogether. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

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

As a result of the uploading error, these seven metros dropped off the list:

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

In addition to Nashville, these six metros are now in the Top 25:

• Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas
• Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C., Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia
• Cambridge-Newtown-Framingham, Massachusetts
• Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan
• 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. Salt Lake City was in the No. 1 position, but was replaced by Seattle and dropped to No. 3.

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:

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, Ohio
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

Click here to see more statistics on the cities that made the list, including median income, unemployment rate and more.
Patch's Feroze Dhanoa and Sherri Lonon contributed to this story.