In the past decade, there has been a great deal of attention paid to and speculation about the residential mobility and location decisions of millennials. Academics and practitioners alike have been trying to determine where millennials are moving and why, including whether they are leading a ‘back to the city’ movement or whether they are moving to the suburbs as previous generations did at their age. Using US Census data, this article examines the geographical population distribution of young adults in the USA in recent decades. Categorising neighbourhoods by their urban or suburban character and by their central or peripheral location, we find that millennials lived in urban areas on the heels of the Great Recession at higher rates than previous generations. However, over the decade, the millennial population gradually shifted towards suburban areas: central urban and peripheral urban neighbourhoods largely lost millennial residents from 2011 to 2021, while peripheral suburban neighbourhoods experienced substantial gains. When it comes to neighbourhood amenities (e.g. restaurants and parks), millennials largely left amenity-rich areas for neighbourhoods with fewer amenities, though these amenities grew faster in the neighbourhoods that gained millennials the most. Millennial suburbanisation seems to be associated with housing affordability and demand for larger homes, as the population shift was more pronounced in the metros that have lower housing affordability and a lower share of larger homes in their central urban neighbourhoods. The results indicate the importance of affordable and right-sized housing, complemented with neighbourhood amenities, in attracting and retaining this population group.

中文翻译：

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回郊区？从大衰退到大流行的千禧一代居住地

在过去的十年中，千禧一代的居住流动性和选址决策受到了广泛的关注和猜测。学者和从业者一直在试图确定千禧一代正在向何处迁移以及原因，包括他们是否正在引领“回归城市”运动，或者是否像前几代人在同龄时那样迁移到郊区。本文利用美国人口普查数据，研究了近几十年来美国年轻人的地理人口分布。根据城市或郊区特征以及中心或外围位置对社区进行分类，我们发现千禧一代在大衰退之后居住在城市地区的比例高于前几代人。然而，近十年来，千禧一代人口逐渐向郊区转移：2011年至2021年，中心城区和周边城市社区大量流失千禧一代居民，而外围郊区社区则出现大幅增长。当谈到社区设施（例如餐馆和公园）时，千禧一代基本上离开了设施丰富的地区，前往设施较少的社区，尽管这些设施在最吸引千禧一代的社区中增长更快。千禧一代的郊区化似乎与住房负担能力和对更大住房的需求有关，因为人口转移在住房负担能力较低且中心城市社区较大住房比例较低的都会区更为明显。结果表明，经济适用房和大小合适的住房，辅之以社区便利设施，对于吸引和留住这一人口群体非常重要。