The hot pursuit of young professionals has been at the core of American cities' urban revival for more than a decade. It worked. They came, they played, they stayed.
An urban renaissance unfolded as the number of people living in America's downtowns soared, construction of condos and loft apartments boomed and once-derelict neighborhoods thrived. In many of the largest cities in the most-populous metropolitan areas, downtown populations grew at double-digit rates from 2000 to 2010, according to the Census.
Now, cities face a new demographic reality:
The young and single are aging and having children. If the pattern of the past 50 years holds, they might soon set their sights on suburbia.
The oldest of Millennials turn 30 this year and they're ready to start families
The stakes are high because the oldest of 86 million Millennials are turning 30 this year, a time when many marry and start families. This giant demographic wave is even larger than the 77 million-strong Baby Boomers that have dominated social and cultural trends for decades.
"This Millennial generation is the generation that decides where it's going to live before it decides what it's going to do," says William Fulton, president of policy and research at Smart Growth America, a non-profit national coalition against suburban sprawl. "The stakes are very high."
Young people are most likely to move at the drop of a hat
"We know young people move the most," says Richard Florida, whose book The Rise of the Creative Class published 10 years ago helped spark the wooing of young professionals to revive declining urban centers. "So capturing people early on in their lives in a metro really matters. It's important to compete with suburbs for people once they get a little older and have children."
The older they get, the less likely people are to live in cities, according to recent Census data. The peak age for urban living is 25 to 27, when 20 percent of that age group are nestled in urban centers. By the age of 41, about a quarter have moved to the suburbs.
Millennials are no longer interested in the "extended dorm life" of big city living
Cities endured decades of shrinking populations fueled by an exodus of young and old who found refuge from crime, racial tension and poverty in suburbia. When cities began to invest in their neighborhoods with new housing and rail systems and lured entrepreneurs, the turnaround happened. Cities don't want to see the pattern reverse again.
"Cities began renewal efforts by offering a young adult-focused lifestyle," says Robert Lang, urban affairs professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. "It was like an extension of dorm life after college. Cities assumed that they would get to the business of improving schools and providing more family services later. Well, now it's later."
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