Quote:
Originally Posted by Evergrey
The problem is... when you were in Chicago... you didn't run into the even greater number of people your age that moved away from Chicago... because they're in Denver or Seattle or Houston.
I think our perceptions of places like Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. are influenced by the massive migration flows these cities experience. St. Louis might be experiencing a net gain of young adults... but Chicago sees a lot more young adults moving in. However, there are even more young adults moving out of Chicago... hence the loss. Our largest metros are centers of major population churn.
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Generally speaking, I think central Chicago gains a lot of young people. I would be shocked if you could provide city-only numbers showing otherwise.
The suburbs lose young people because when you're young you want to move away from your parents (or are at least willing to). Central Chicago is the destination of choice (within the metro area) for people coming from other metros. Chicago suburbs are not. Since 70% of the population and probably 80% of the local-raised young people are in the suburbs, if even a small fraction of them decide to move to a new metro just to get away from their parents, it creates a huge number to replace through in-migration. But since a greater percentage of that incoming cohort would land in the City itself, as a metro area you end up "losing" young people to other areas, but the central city still ends up gaining quite a lot. In more expensive locations, you have fewer young people moving in as a percentage of total *for the metro area* compared to older people simply because it's a bigger gamble. That's why places like Chicago, New York, SF, and LA all "lose" young people. The only time that gets overridden is when thre's just a huge influx of every age group, like, for example, most of Texas.
I would guess that St. Louis is keeping more of its youth partly because it's becoming a more interesting city, but it could also be because the youth there simply don't think they can afford to risk moving to more expensive cities.
Also, I'm curious - are those domestic migration only, or do they include immigrants, too?