Oct 2, 2009 by Jenny
Millennials moving, millennials marrying
Everyone’s talking about the Millennials. An article in the WSJ, “The Next Youth Magnet Cities,” identifies the cities to which Millennials are most likely to move. Washington D.C. and Seattle, WA tied for first, followed by New York, Portland and Austin.
A November, 2007 article, “The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities,” also in the WSJ, covered the cities people move to when they marry and start families. As priorities change, they move from the cities known for the night life, to places like Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham for a lower cost of living and shorter commutes.
Joel Kotkin, who wrote the article and a book on the subject:
Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.
Portland appeared on both lists, but Kotkin wrote that this was attributable to job growth in the Portland suburbs. Kotkin also covered the Millennials in his 2007 piece:
The family’s enduring supremacy is also apparent in the attitudes of young people, the so-called millennials. As Morley Winograd and Michael Hais suggest in their upcoming book, “Millennial Mainstream,” this new generation is twice as numerous as Generation X, and far more family-oriented. They display markedly less proclivity for teen pregnancy, abortion and juvenile crime. They also tend to have more favorable relations with their parents, with half staying in daily touch and almost all in weekly contact.
Our economic struggles had yet to surface when Kotkin wrote this in 2007, but the upheaval since then has only heightened the sensitivity to areas of the country in which families can work toward whatever stability is possible in the new normal.
Millennials marrying in this economy will be interesting to watch, but I’m guessing that the current hot spots will lose some magnetism.
