As the financial situation for American millennials grows more difficult, many are still deciding where they want to live.
SmartAsset and CNBC teamed up to compare information from the Census Bureau’s 2016 migration data and come up with a list. Some of the results were more obvious, such as the fact that millennials are now avoiding the coastal elite cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The main trend is that the young are choosing to avoid large cities in favor of small cities.
The most attractive city in the US for millennials would appear to be Seattle, Washington. The Washingtonian city has a relatively small population of 724,745. The city saw 29,628 millennials move in in 2016, while only 22,326 moved out. Much of this positive migration from millennials is related to the search for jobs. Seattle is far from the cheapest city on the list, with a median rent price of $2700. After Seattle, the second most attractive city for millennials was Columbia, South Carolina, where 13,352 millennials moved in and 6,415 moved out in 2016. The town of Columbia is really small, at with just 133,114 people in total. The median rent price in Columbia is a comfortable $1155.
Rounding out the top five, you can find similarities between Sacramento, California, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Jacksonville, Florida. These towns are all comfortably small without being too sleepy, and they all have lower costs of living, relative to major cities in their respective regions.
