Millennials Actually Like the Suburbs

For the past few years, the media has churned out a steady stream of stories describing how city-loving millennials are driving a re-urbanization of the U.S.

But not so fast. As it turns out, the white picket fence life is still desirable for the young age group, according to a new report from CBRE.

Census data shows domestic net migration out of cities and into suburbia. We chatted with the author of the report, CBRE director of research and analysis Darin Mellott.

By the numbers

The most recent annual data from 2014 shows that 2.8 million people moved from the suburbs to cities that year, but 4.6 million did the opposite. That means the death of suburbs isn’t nigh.

“This news is quite shocking to some people because of how much life that prevailing narrative that has taken on its own,” he said.

Millennials, or those mostly born between 1980 and 1995, make up the largest age group in the country and the biggest segment of the U.S. workforce. But census data does disagree with the media when it comes to where they actually live and where they have been moving to.

About 30% of millennials live within urban areas. The remaining balance doesn’t appear to be rushing to city centers; in 2014, 529,000 people between 25 and 29 moved from cities to suburbs, while only 426,000 did the reverse.

For the younger end of the spectrum (ages 20 to 24), the flow’s direction was even more pronounced, with 554,000 becoming city dwellers and 721,000 trading cities for ‘burbs (keep in mind some of that represented relocation into parents’ basements).

Among the oldest millennials and the tail end of Gen X, negative net migration was even more: 1.2 million people aged 30 to 44 moved from cities to suburbs, while 540,000 did the contrary.

For the full story, read more at Hightower Blog.

Tierney Plumb is a former reporter for Bisnow San Franscio. She previously worked with the San Diego Daily Transcript and the Washington Business Journal. This article was originally published in the Hightower Blog on August 15, 2016.