Smart Young People Still Moving to Cities

According to a new study from City Observatory, the number of young (25-34) college graduates living in city centers is up 37% since 2000, although the overall population of those areas has hardly changed. Dense, urban neighborhoods are the cool place to be. I am fascinated by this development. Is it just fashion? Is it because, as a real estate investor I know says, the affordable suburbs are just too far out now to be livable? (He expects that the next generation of slums will be suburbs an hour's drive from city centers.) Is it renewed environmentalism and a desire to bike to work and otherwise reduce carbon footprint a factor? Certainly there is a lot of evidence that young America's century-long love affair with cars has faded a little. Is it falling crime? Smaller families? A desire for lives that seem interesting rather than comfortable? All of those things?

City Observatory also offers this chart showing which cities are doing the best at recruiting such people. I should note, though, that this chart represents change, and some cities like Minneapolis and Boston don't show up because they had a big growth in the number of college graduates they attracted in the 20 years before this chart begins and so have't seen as much growth since. The usual suspects dominate, but it's interesting to see Buffalo, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and St. Louis showing big growth in this category. As City Observatory notes, the cities that draw the most young talent are often the ones that do best over the next few decades, so all of those once dying places seem primed for renewed growth.