Housing
How to Find Your Real Sister City
The Chicago Fed’s new data-mapping tool can identify towns with sibling connections.
People often link Austin, Texas, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as sister cities. Both are home to anchor universities with leading research institutions and quasi-professional college football teams; both are politically liberal enclaves with large student populations and a small-town feel.
But on at least one key metric—labor force participation rate—Austin has more in common with Salt Lake City, Utah. And when it comes to housing standards, Ann Arbor is closer in kind with Knoxville, Tennessee.