The movement of talented young adults to dense urban neighborhoods is not waning; it is widespread and accelerating, and it is powering urban revival. Cities continue to be magnets for talented young adults. The number of well-educated young adults living in close-in urban neighborhoods is increasing in every large US metropolitan area, and this trend has accelerated in recent years.
City Observatory’s new report -
Youth Movement: Accelerating America’s Urban Renaissance - shows that the growth of close-in urban neighborhoods in the US since 2010 has been propelled by the accelerating movement of well-educated young adults back to the city.
Close-in urban neighborhoods are increasingly attractive to the “young and restless” 25- to 34-year-olds who have completed at least a four-year college degree. These well-educated young adults have accounted for more than half of the increase in population in close-in urban neighborhoods in the nation’s large metro areas since 2010.
There is no evidence that this powerful momentum has been blunted by Coronavirus concerns. In April, the market share of search activity for urban locations increased in 29 of the 35 largest US metro areas, while search activity for suburban locations decreased in all 35 of the largest metro areas, according to data gathered by Zillow. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, there is no sign people are looking away from cities.
Smart young adults are concentrating in cities: Well-educated young adults are three-and-half times more likely to live in close-in urban neighborhoods, which the report defines as census tracts within three miles of the center of a region’s principal central business district. The trend is remarkably widespread: The number of well-educated adults living in close-in urban neighborhoods increased in every one of the nation’s 52 most populated metropolitan areas since 2010.
In addition, the rate of growth of this key demographic in city centers has accelerated to a pace faster than the previous decade in four-fifths of these large metro areas. Slower growth in recent years is due to supply constraints.
While some analysts have noted a slowdown in central city growth, there is little evidence that the “young and restless” are disenchanted with cities. If anything, its likely that population growth in these neighborhoods is constrained not by a lack of demand, but by a lack of supply: it has been difficult to build enough housing to accommodate all those who would like to live in these neighborhoods, with the result that rents have gone up. Some of the most popular cities for well-educated young adults have experienced slower rates of growth in the young and restless compared to the 2000-2010 period, most likely reflecting limited housing supply and rising rents.