Why Are Smart Cities Growing? Who Moves and Who Stays*

ABSTRACT This paper examines why smart cities are growing by investigating who moves to smart cities and who stays. Smart cities are often centers of higher education, so students moving to pursue higher education may play an important role. I find that the greater in-migration to smart cities is mostly due to persons enrolled in higher education. Smart cities are growing in part because in-migrants often stay in the city after completing their education. The growth of smart cities is also mostly attributable to population redistribution within the same state and has little effect on population growth at the state level.