What Draws Millennials to Big Cities?

Once generations past hit their 20s, their focus was on moving to the suburbs. Millennials are going against this trend by flocking in droves to big cities. There are a variety of factors which help explain this trend. Rather than add to the pile of “great cities for Millennials” articles on the blogosphere, this article’s focus is on why so many Millennials have big-city aspirations.

 Cities Offer the Best Career Opportunities

One of the main reasons Millennials are heading for big cities is the same force that drove generations before them- career opportunities. The difference is most suburbs aren’t offering jobs with livable wages today like they were for Baby Boomers. Rising inflation and stagnant wages, coupled with the recession of 2008, has made Millennials more driven to enter a well-paying career.

One thing posts on the best cities for Millennials have in common is they list the industries which are thriving in different locales. Those looking to go into industries like finance, business, investments, banking, media, fashion, and technology are virtually forced to move to big cities to move up the career ladder.

While this explains the Millennial desire to work in a big city, it doesn’t quite explain why they want to live there. The suburbs are filled with workers who commute to the nearest metropolitan area. What makes Millennials want to live in the city?

 Millennials Thrive on Social Connection

Millennials are the generation of Social Media. Our eyes have become organic Instagram filters, processing what we see in terms of how it could be captured and shared to our followers. We have an insatiable appetite for social connection. We sometimes feel a sense of loss when we are without our phones, because they have become the main medium with which we communicate. With the popularity of dating apps like Tinder, it has even become socially acceptable to meet and chat with someone online before meeting them in person.

Anyone who has used Tinder knows it is much more likely to find a match in a big city than a suburb. This is a microcosm for all types of socialization amongst Millennials. It’s already been established Millennials are moving to big cities. A Millennial who has moved back to their hometown after four years of living amongst people their own age at college knows they can re-create this social situation by moving to a city.

As someone who has watched the show Friends obsessively, I like to call this the “Friends effect.” I’m confident any fan of Friends has fantasized about living in an awesome apartment in the same building as your closest friends. I think, metaphorically, every Millennial moves to a big city in search of their Central Perk- a place where they meet regularly with their friends and muse on the ups and downs of trying to make it in a big city.

 Big Cities are an Incubator for Innovation

An article in NewsWeek states innovation depends upon an ecosystem. In other words, an environment conducive to innovation produces a higher frequency of innovative ideas. It’s how places like Silicon Valley come into existence.

Many Millennials aspire to own their own businesses. This spirit of entrepreneurship drives them to move to big cities in hopes of building a startup into a million-dollar company. Besides Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and Boston are two cities which have become startup havens. An area of Manhattan has even earned the nickname “Silicon Alley.”

The reason aspiring entrepreneurs flock to these cities is the potential for collaboration. Almost no successful Millennial entrepreneurs achieved their level of success without a team. Moving to a big city is often the turning point that catapults an entrepreneur to success because it fosters teamwork. Co-working spaces can be found in every big city. These spaces can contain several different startups all working in the same “office”. It’s an environment that promotes collaboration and the potential of merging startup ideas, and they’re being taken advantage of by Millennial entrepreneurs.

Have you relocated to a big city from a suburban hometown? What made you make the move? We’d love to hear about your experiences!