Where do young adults want to live?

The Wall Street Journal recently asked six "experts" what they think will be "the hottest, hippest destinations for highly mobile, educated workers in their 20's" when the economy picks up. The panel's top five choices: Washington, DC; Seattle; New York City; Portland, Oregon; and Austin, Texas.

The others: San Jose, California; Denver; Raleigh, North Carolina; Dallas; Chicago; and Boston.

Sigh.

We don't have to try to be any of those cities. Still, area leaders insist that they want more young adults to move here - and that we need to keep the ones we have. That's not idle dreaming. In the past, notes the Journal article, where young adults locate has "defined the future of regions."

"Youth-magnet cities," says the Journal article, "gain an enviable cultural allure and a labor-market edge."

Why, after years of trying, can't we get this community going? Given the wealth of natural and cultural resources, why don't we do better?

It's not the weather.

Seriously. It's not the weather. For a lot of people, particularly young adults, snow is a plus, not a handicap. It rains much of the time in Seattle. And have you been to Austin or Dallas in the summer?

Austin's attraction fascinates me. It's a nice city with an enormous university. It's the state capital, and it has a terrific nightlife. But its downtown is nothing to rave about. It's really hot in the summer. And here - to me, at least - is the shocker: 30 years or so ago, Austin was smaller than Rochester.

I called Nick Barbaro, the publisher of Austin's alternative newsweekly, the Austin Chronicle, and asked him what has made Austin such a hip place for young adults. "Gosh, I dunno," he said. "The university certainly has a large piece of that."

But he added that the university is about the same size now as it was when he moved to Austin in 1975 - about 50,000 students. The state capital isn't new, either. But Austin's the population, about 150,000 in 1975, is now about 650,000.

What happened that made Austin catch fire? Did Austin leaders do something, come up with some kind of vision?

Barbaro doesn't think so. He thinks the growth just happened. "Texas in general has grown at that pace," he said. "I'm sure there are people who would say they had a vision. And there were people who contributed...."

But again: "A large part of it is the university. You hear tons of stories of folks who went there and didn't want to leave. The tech industry has grown up with that."

One of the tech companies, of course, is Dell Computers. Michael Dell went to the University of Texas.

Also in Austin: Whole Foods. Whose founder went to UT.

There was something about Austin that UT students loved, that made them want to stay there. There has been something about Texas (and not just oil).

I don't want Rochester to be Austin. I would like us to be bigger, and healthier, economically. Maybe the slow, steady growth at our own universities and colleges is a sign that we're turning a corner of some kind. But given our resources, and given where we were a few decades ago, we ought to be in better shape. Since the 1970's, Austin's population has exploded. Monroe County's population today is only slightly higher than it was in 1970.

Austin had the kernels that produced the growth, and it obviously took advantage of them. If Austin could get its act together, keep its young people and attract new industry, can't we?

I can hear the shouts from the business community: It's taxes! Texas has low taxes! But there are regions that have boosted their economy despite high taxes.

Taxes, like snow, can't be ignored. But taxes have become an easy excuse, the alibi for our provincialism, our lack of creativity and initiative, our lack of leadership.

If UT graduates have just loved Austin and want to stay there, hot summers and all, is there a lesson we can learn?