Nevertheless, the Youthful Preference for Urban Living Persisted

Richard Florida reports: "A new peer-reviewed study (the article is forthcoming in the Journal of Regional Science) finds that not only have young people been a driving force in the urban resurgence of the past two decades, but they favor living in central urban neighborhoods significantly more than previous generations did at the same stages in life."

Yongsung Lee of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Bumsoo Lee and Md Tanvir Hossain Shubho of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign authored the study.

Over the past three decades, each successive cohort of young adults in the United States has become progressively more urban. "Young adults aged 25-34 have indeed been key movers in the urban revival. But the shift precedes Millennials; it actually began with Gen Xers back in the 1990s. And the youngest cohort, aged 20-24, is the most urban of all. American adults aged 20 to 34 are much more urban, and much less suburban, than the Baby Boomers," according to Florida's explanation of the study's findings.