No, Young People Aren't Fleeing Cities

A recent article in Time, based largely on the research of UCLA demographer Dowell Myers, proclaims that U.S. cities are hitting “peak Millennial.” The gist of Myers’s argument is that we’ve seen the high water mark for the effect of Millennials on urban growth, and that like previous generations, they’re going to decamp to the suburbs, and this whole “back to the city” movement will be over.

The key factoids in the Time article are the observations that the number of Millennials in three cities—Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles—have declined between 2015 and 2016 according to the latest American Community Survey tabulations. The headline shouts the claim that the young are leaving cities: “These Cities Have Already Reached ‘Peak Millennial’ as Young People Begin to Leave.”