Earlier today we looked at the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. and there were definitely a lot of surprises on the list. Now we’ll take a look the top U.S. cities where millennials are moving and that list are not exactly the places that you would expect.
There is a millennial migration going on right now. While you would imagine that young people are headed to New York City or Los Angeles, and while that is still the case, they are not flocking to major cities like you might surmise. According to research from the Urban Land Institute, the number one city where millennials are moving to is actually Virginia Beach, Virginia, and by a wide margin. The Virginia Beach metro area saw an astounding 16 percent increase from 2010 to 2015, the next closest was the fellow Virginia metropolitan area of Richmond.
This upswing in millennials is no surprise to Bryan Stevens, who is the president of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, which includes Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News. TIME reported that Stevens’ department asked local millennials what would make the area a more attractive place to live, work, and raise a family. Virginia Beach used the information to extending a light rail, which launched in 2011, as well as developing new restaurants, and revamping city centers. “All of that has been deliberately evolved over the past few years,” Stevens said.
Top 10 Cities Where Millennials Are Moving:
You can see the entire list of the top 25 cities where millennials are moving over at TIME.
The high costs of living have pushed millennials out of cities such as New York (Which had a 2.5 percent growth and was near the bottom of the list), Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.
A 2015 study found that 21 percent of 25-to 34-year-olds lived in cities compared to 73 percent who lived in suburbs.