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When it came time for millennials to fly the coop in the 2000s and early 2010s, many of them moved to large urban areas, a phenomenon came to be known as the \u201cback to the city<\/a>\u201d movement. But with mortgage rates, home prices, and rents as high as they are now, this generation is reversing its mass exodus and moving back to the suburbs, a new Harvard University study<\/a> shows.<\/p>\n During the past decade, millennials found themselves moving to suburbs that were farther away from the city center, finds the research from Harvard\u2019s Joint Center for Housing Studies<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile there is extensive research and discussion about millennial preferences for walkable urban areas, we found that the places with the largest increases of early millennials were both suburban and on the periphery of metropolitan areas,\u201d according to the study<\/a> by Riordan Frost, a senior research analyst at the center and coauthors Whitney Airgood-Obrycki and Hyojung Lee.\u00a0<\/p>\n These three researchers were particularly interested in these migration patterns because they\u2019re all millennials themselves, Frost tells Fortune<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The main culprit for this migration trend is housing affordability in cities. Indeed, millennial suburbanization was strongest in metro areas with the least affordable urban centers and those with the fewest available \u201cfamily-sized\u201d housing units, defined as those with at least three bedrooms, according to the paper. This suggests that millennials are leaving the cities where they can\u2019t own a home or raise children.<\/p>\n \u201cPlaces where we\u2019re losing more millennials included high-cost coastal places like LA, New York City, San Diego, [and] Philadelphia,\u201d Frost says. \u201cWe see more suburbanization in these really high-cost metropolitan areas, places with really high-cost urban centers, which promotes millennials moving to the suburbs of those metropolitan areas.\u201d<\/p>\n While some millennials are making their grand exit from expensive cities, Gen Zers are moving right in. In fact, between 2021 and 2022, more than 42% of people moving to New York City were Gen Zers, according to Census Bureau data<\/a>. Plus, major metropolitan areas, including New York, are experiencing population losses among all generations, except for Gen Z, a Today\u2019s Homeowner report<\/a> shows. So many Gen Zers have made the move to the Big Apple<\/a> that the city saw its lowest vacancy rate<\/a> and biggest housing crunch in the past 50 years.<\/p>\n \u201cYounger generations certainly constitute a significant portion of those returning to the city for its social, cultural, and convenience appeal,\u201d Jason Bordainick, cofounder and managing partner at New York-based Hudson Valley Property Group<\/a>, previously told Fortune<\/em><\/a>. \u201cWhether working in-office or remotely, the appeal of urban living, especially in Manhattan, remains strong.\u201d<\/p>\n So how are Gen Zers affording city living if millennials can\u2019t? Frost says it has more to do with the type of housing millennials are looking for at this stage in life\u2014more spacious apartments or homes, which are in short supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCities\u2014especially with this millennial surge that happened in the late 2000s, early 2010s [developed] to meet the needs of millennials at the time,\u201d Frost says. \u201cBut a lot of that made cities more of a fit toward young adults. Maybe they liked small housing sizes, the types of amenities. That made [cities] ill-suited for retaining millennials as they grew in household size.\u201d<\/p>\n Millennials are \u201calso contending with school and childcare costs\u2014and [are] more likely to form a household in which both parents work,\u201d Ted De Barbieri<\/a>, a professor at Albany Law School who specializes in property and housing law, tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cMoving close to family in the suburbs and engaging in some good-old-fashioned alloparenting by letting grandparents and extended family pitch in on the toil of child-rearing is also, undoubtedly, a draw.\u201d<\/p>\n But speaking of amenities such as restaurants, bars, parks, and other attractions, millennials are bringing those with them to the suburbs. While researchers initially thought that millennials were forgoing lifestyle-rich cities when they decamped to the suburbs, they found that during the past decade, the suburbs have become more city-like.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like millennials bring the city with them,\u201d Frost says. \u201cWe were kind of surprised to see the millennials were moving to far-flung and peripheral suburban areas, but it could be that they\u2019re changing those places as they go there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nIs Gen Z going to replace millennials in cities?<\/h2>\n
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