The common perception is that young adults are flocking to major cities such as San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago, seeking a trendy urban lifestyle. But since 2000, California’s Inland Empire, the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, has had the nation’s highest population growth among Millennials, at 47.7 percent.
According to New Geography, Millennials, like previous generations, still desire single-family homes in the suburbs as they age deeper into adulthood.
Young adults are still moving to big cities, of course, but they face obstacles including lower incomes and less permanent employment, compared to previous generations at the same age. Big cities are often unaffordable.
Virtually all the fastest growing millennial locations — including Riverside-San Bernardino and the rest of the top 10 metropolitan areas (Orlando, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Austin, Houston, Sacramento, Jacksonville, Raleigh, Tampa-St. Petersburg) — have even lower housing costs.
Most Millennials already live in suburbs (80 percent of people between 25 and 34 that live in major metro areas live in a suburb or exurb), and nearly 80 percent of the population growth in the major metros occurred in suburbs and exurbs since 2010.
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