(Updated at 3:05 p.m.) Arlington is near the top of a list highlighted in “The Atlantic” that features America’s top counties for the “creative class.”
The list is an excerpt from a recently released book, written on the belief that the role of creativity is on the rise in American society. It asserts that the creative class consists of around 40 million workers, or more than one-third of the total workforce. Examples of fields with high numbers of creative class professionals include management, education, science, architecture and media.
The list charts the concentration of the creative class by county (although several independent Virginia cities also made the list). Arlington County came in at number two, second only to Los Alamos County, New Mexico. A number of D.C.-area locales also made the list, including:
3. Falls Church, VA
4. District of Columbia
6. Alexandria, VA
8. Fairfax County, VA
9. Howard County, MD
10. Loudoun County, VA
11. Montgomery County, MD
12. Fairfax City, VA
15. Albemarle County, VA
The region also fared well on the list of states with high numbers of the creative class. The District came in first, Maryland is third and Virginia came in fifth.