Little Pond?

Recently I was on a Skype call with friends from high school, who all remained in my hometown. One friend asked why I stayed in Carolina and another interjected that I wanted to be a big fish in a little pond. I did not respond because the range of thoughts were sure to offend. It seemed ironic since if anyway was in a little pond, it was my friends and not me. Beacon had as of the 2010 Census a population of 15,541. Durham city had 228,330 citizens in the same census, living within 95 square miles. More telling, in my age bracket the numbers were 2,260 to 44,392. In the 825 square mile Dutchess county containing Beacon the Census counted 297,488 people with 31,656 in my age bracket... I wondered how my 2,000 home neighborhood compared against Beacon but cannot get census data that quite matches the neighborhood. Census puts 1,394 firms in Beacon and 18,148 firms in Durham. Any way you dice the Census, I live in a much larger city. Here is a telling statistic: the percentage of the population with a Bachelors Degree or greater in Beacon is 23.7% and 45.6% for Durham. Colleges brought us to this area and attracted the businesses that we work for too. The largest employers here are Duke, then IBM, then a few public sector and private sector firms like my employer. In Dutchess County the state is the largest employer with IBM closely behind, followed by the hospitals and Wal-Mart. I remember at an interview in NY being told that the teachers were the largest population of people with jobs in the area. Interestingly, IBM is a major employer in both areas. However the jobs are very different. IBM manufactures in NY and consults in NC. Instead of calling attention to the population, economics, or demographic differences, I kept my mouth shut while the conversation moved on and the topic changed to something else.