Big Cities are a Big Draw for Gen Z
 

Big cities are a big draw for Gen Z: These are the areas that Gen Z is rapidly migrating to.

Gen Z and the city – a love story?

Just as millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers fled big cities during the pandemic in search of warmer weather and lower costs of living, the youngest adults (Ages 18-24) bucked the trend and moved in droves to some of the largest cities in the country.

The five largest U.S. cities – New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia – all had net migration increases for Gen Z while experiencing net decreases for all other generations, according to an analysis of Census Bureau 2021 American Community Survey by Today's Homeowner.

While millennials abandoned NYC in droves, with 96,600 members fleeing the city, the Big Apple turned out into a big draw for Gen Z, gaining over 3,043 members of this generation – the largest net gain for NYC across all age groups, according to the report.

Other large cities also saw similar gains in Gen Z population, with Washington D.C., Columbia and Boston, each with a net migration of over 10,000 per city.

Florida may be the most moved to state in the country, but not when it comes to Gen Z.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...n/11337814002/

*Searchable table on the site.

My guess is that Florida is bleeding young people because it's turning into a high cost of living state with low wages and a declining wellbeing with high crime and poor quality schools along with some of the alienating political changes which circle back into those problems. Why would you move to some hot and sweaty place that's expensive with a hate-filled culture that's also kind of hood and generally just maxes out life's frustrations like traffic.

Gen Z and younger are the first post-middle class generation. Millenials were the dividing line. What I mean is increasingly the demographic reality is a greater proportion of children will come from low-income single parent households that were never homeowners and have limited money, and are more wary of student loan debt, so they have worse economic prospects. They are going to be much less likely to move from state to state than their parents due to lack of resources, and when they do they will want a better standard of living. The Sunbelt as it now exists won't offer that.

Florida is the state for already-rich people who are greedy and conservative or just senile to move to. It grows rapidly because it has lots of master-planned HOA communities with golf courses for people who in this economy can somehow afford a $600k house with an outdoor kitchen and a Tesla or GMC Denali. That or new immigrants who don't speak English and are unfamiliar with the US and it's geography, are okay with working for minimum wage, and come from cultures where the culture war stuff reminds them of home.

I think someday there's going to be a generation that gives the Sunbelt the finger. You won't see much domestic migration among them at all, and when they do migrate they'll go to places you didn't see coming that are LCOL, culturally and politically anodyne, and have more middle-skill jobs rather than the Florida economy of finance/tech/trade on one side and hotel cleaner/line cook/construction worker on the other.

My niece and her boyfriend live in FL and they are having a hard time finding work; she's a biologist and he's a software developer both fresh out of college.

I'm Gen X and have zero interest in living in Florida.

It's just a nice place to visit for a few days in the winter for me...

FL is going to be interesting to watch. I know so many people living there now and their cost of living has skyrocketed but the job market is not keeping up. But if you are a lover of warm/hot weather and beaches it's THE option so that is going to keep many people around right up to their breaking point.

Florida is gonna be underwater by the time Zoomers start buying houses. :haha:

"I'm Gen X and have zero interest in living in Florida." Same. Or even visiting right now. My best friend lives in St. Pete and while I love that city I'm skipping visiting him and will spend my tourists dollars elsewhere.

Well, speaking anecdotally, my oldest nephew, who is 23, got a new job last month in the Los Angeles area. Right now he's staying with Lolo and Lola (Grandpa and Grandma in Tagalog) until he can find his own apartment. He spent his formative/teen years up in Chico, CA, and has good memories of the Los Angeles area, visiting Lolo and Lola and me, so that's why he wanted to get a job here.

And I guess too you can't really paint all Gen-Zers the same because it depends on what kind of work you do, and how much they pay. After he graduated high school, he went to Oregon Institute of Technology and got a Bachelors in Nuclear Medicine. He did an externship last year in College Station, TX---and hated it there. He said he encountered racism from patients. So, as soon as his externship ended, he wanted to get the hell out of Texas. He never mentioned Florida as a place to move to.

He likes his new job and is making very good money for a 23 year-old. He's told me, driving around LA, which areas where he might want to get an apartment. I know the ballpark figure of what he makes, and the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms it:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1fd7ab57_b.jpg


They don't pay as much for his line of work in Florida:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/sw292033.png

Source: https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292033.htm

Those rural areas will continue to die off. In our dopamine infused world, people want action and stimulation and so... cities will provide that. There is no hope for some of those rural counties, only dirt and returning to what it was before human development. If there's any generation that is overstimulated, its Gen Z.

We just need to build housing to keep the prices at bay and let our cities flourish.

Also, folks have to understand the issue of heat. Eventually... some areas of the U.S. will get very very very hot... and that could be an issue. Might not be so now... but in the future... it will be (just ask India). So while its cute that folks move because of the warmer weather... enjoy it for now.

In the end, the Northern states, the cooler and colder states will be the future. Canada might be it!

I find Florida depressing once you are away from the beaches.

I was just in Sarasota for the first time ever last November. On the limo ride from the airport to the resort on Lido Beach...it was not that pretty the first few miles out of the airport going down the Tamiami Trail. It didn't turn nice until we hit the downtown area and then over the causeway to Lido Key. Lido Key was nice...

This why I think the work-from-home and the 'new normal' of telework is significantly overplayed. Not everyone but people want to be around other people and they want the stimulation that cities offer and that sitting on your couch four days per week lacks.

I don't think work-from-home is significantly overplayed; I think work-from-home from anywhere is significantly overplayed.

From what I've seen in my industry (media advertising), people have shifted en mass to spending at least 2-3 days working from home a week. But no one moved from the main clusters to far-flung rural escapes or small-town living. Everyone just stayed in NYC, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, and Miami. You still need to meet in person with the clients, after all.

My only question is: what comes after generation Z?

Give it time, and anyone fresh out of a Florida college or university, considering how hard the state is working to systematically dismantle higher education, will have a hard time finding work outside of Florida itself. A Florida university degree will have about as much worth as a degree from Bob Jones University. A degree from there might get you a job in the local area here, but about half the employers here will still round-file a Bob Jones degree, and nearly every employer outside the local area will toss it. Your niece ought to get out and go somewhere else while a degree from a Florida college still has some value.

Try Ocala. I live in Upstate South Carolina, which is basically Deliverance banjo country outside of the mini-Atlanta of the Greenville-Spartanburg metro.

Note: Some parts inside of the mini-Atlanta of the Greenville-Spartanburg metro are also Deliverance banjo country.

That being said, interior central Florida makes Upstate South Carolina look like the boulevards of Paris and the squares of Vienna all rolled into one. Ocala was indescribable -- but to be fair, we did go a major flea market and it lived up to every expectation that the words large Florida flea market likely bring to mind. And while I was able to pick up two asparagus ferns for a mere $5 each, I'm not sure the deep psychological wounds I picked up there as well were worth the savings.

Florida is far from being a high-crime state and 20 year olds don't care about schools.

I wish she would move to TX; she'd be closer to us and both would have better career prospects.

Alpha

Florida is basically a more crowded Mississippi or Louisiana once you get a few miles from the beach. Florida is still a southern state, a deep southern state at that, despite what many people say about it not being "the south".

Well yeah, a lot of places are a lot of things when you go a few miles from the attraction of the area.

Florida had less than 3M population in 1950.

By 1980, it had 10M. By 2000, 16M. Over 22M now.

"Deep Southern" states are not composed mainly of transplants and 1st and 2nd generation residents.