What Millennials Want—And Why Cities Are Right to Pay Them So Much Attention

As a baby boomer myself, I'll confess to feeling a bit like, enough with all this talk about the Millennials already. But the reality is, those born roughly between 1982 and 2001 form a demographic cohort of some 80 million Americans. So it’s not surprising that U.S. cities are paying a lot of attention to what they want—now and in the future—in terms of the places they live.

For cities, the resurgent interest in downtown living has long been attributed to aging boomers—those born roughly between 1945 and 1964, an estimated 80 million as well, many of whom have already become empty-nesters and sold the house in the suburbs and “right-sized” to a condo near the symphony and fabulous bistros. Another significant segment of growing urban populations, of course, are the young professionals and what Richard Florida calls the “creative class.”