To measure the diversity of high-profile employment options, we ranked each metro based on how many of the 200 largest U.S. public companies call that city home. Finally, in order to get an idea of where America's most promising young people are already living, we looked at where recent grads from six different elite universities have chosen to settle. We counted how many members of the Class of 2000 at Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Duke University, Rice University, and Northwestern University are currently living in each city. The presence of well-educated students from around the country points to both a concentration of talent, and a strong network of career-minded young people.

When ties appeared in our final ranking, we broke them based on which city had a higher average salary for college graduates.