Many people, including Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn’s president said that “We’re not going to take it lying down.” w/e. You can probably attribute the lackluster numbers to idiots not returning their census forms. Only 63% did, which when compared to the national average of 74% is pretty weak.

In the meanwhile there are lots of other interesting cities you can visit if you’re considering moving and transport. We still have two other Alpha world cities. An alpha city, or a world city, is determined based on a number of economic, cultural, infrastructural and political factors. So far the only Alpha ++ cities in the world are London and New York. The other American alphas are L.A. and Chicago.

Betas +: Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco     Beta: Dallas    Beta -: Houston

Gamma +: Seattle, Denver, San Jose, Minneapolis   Gamma: Portland, Philadelphia  Gamma -: Detroit, Columbus, San Diego.

Portland, Woot! And New York is still the highest ranked, most-ballin city in the world, 2.1% growth or no.

Data released listing college degrees per square mile make San Francisco and New York by far the most educated cities with 7,031 and 6,357, respectively. Also in the top 10 were Boston, Washington, Seattle (which also had the greatest drop in rental price last year), Chicago, Minneapolis, Providence, Philadelphia, and Miami. The entire list can be found here.

This data can be somewhat misleading according to size; the top 2 also have some of the country’s highest population density. Clearly, a smart city can be overshadowed if it lacks the community that allows for smart people to work together. County and city borders differ, which is demonstrated by the smartest county graphs.

If you want to move, now is a great time. Real estate is still cheap, and hasn’t recovered the ground it lost during the recession. Cities like San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco all experienced rental drops close to 10%, which means that apartment living in these large areas hasn’t been this affordable for a long time.

All I know is that I can’t wait for the new Census figures to come out. There’s a lot of difference between cities and their metropolitan area, and in determining where to move, both figures should be examined.