Millennials Are Remaking American Society

Some housing researchers say Millennials prefer to live in big cities, while others say they would rather live in the suburbs. A new simulation says both hypotheses may be right.

Hyojung Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, claims that experts on both sides are "talking past one another," in part by defining metropolitan areas differently. Lee's study simulation finds that young adult populations grew in both cities and suburban areas in the 1990s and 2000s; after 2010, growth continued in the broader city area, but slowed down in urban cores. The study projects sustained growth in the suburbs, as the cost of living in urban areas increases, and that rural areas are in for “difficult demographic headwinds in coming decades,” CityLab reports.

Given every silly stereotype about Millennials, it’s easy to forget the qualities that make these napkin-shunning, straw-opposing young adults so formidable. For starters, there are simply more of them. In the U.S., adults under 40 today outnumber any similar cohort, including the almighty Baby Boomers. As a generation, these 83 million people share a defining experience: neither Tide Pods nor BDE, but the Great Recession. By their sheer numbers, their unprecedented diversity, and the collective economic trauma that forged them, the Millennial generation is set to dramatically remake American society.

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