2016 Millenial Net Migration by City

[ProjectMaximus]

Where is Jax? Jax is 5th!

5. Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville takes fifth. This city came in right behind Minneapolis, only separated from the fourth place finisher by less than 200 millennials. It isn't too hard to see why Jacksonville is a hot spot for millennials. Florida has no income tax and in fact Jacksonville residents are some of the least taxed in the country.

For millennials who want to live in a low tax environment and get started on retirement, it's tough to beat Jacksonville.

https://smartasset.com/mortgage/where-are-millennials-moving-2018-edition

[Kiva]

Interesting that Jacksonville was the only Florida city in the top 10 list.

[benfranklinbof]

Jacksonville is cheap that's why all of my friends and I stay. We venture out to these so called cool cities and realize that we're too poor to live there so we end up staying in Jax LOL.
I could afford it but I have more money in my pocket living here than living in Portland.

Keep it up Jax

[ProjectMaximus]

Jacksonville is cheap that's why all of my friends and I stay. We venture out to these so called cool cities and realize that we're too poor to live there so we end up staying in Jax LOL.
I could afford it but I have more money in my pocket living here than living in Portland.

Keep it up Jax

Jax will become more expensive than it has been. But hopefully it remains affordable and the cost increases prove worthwhile.

[Tacachale]

Typically once cities start capitalizing on trends like this, the quality of life and cost of living. I can't think of a single example where that hasn't happened. Still a good trend, though.

[thelakelander]

Ok I'll be the party pooper. This list is just like the ones we blast that put Jax in a bad light due to our consolidation with Duval County. They took something as random as a city's individual land area, collected the numbers within this diverse range and then ranked the cities by that number. Because the land area comparisons aren't apples to apples the list is anything but scientific.

1. 7,302 - Seattle (83.8 square miles)
2. 6,937 - Columbia (133.5)
3. 6,680 - Sacramento (97.9)
4. 6,529 - Minneapolis (54.0)
5. 6,354 - Jacksonville (747.4)
6. 5,667 - Newport News (69.1)
7. 5,496 - San Jose (177.5)
8. 5,106 - Denver (153.3)
9. 4,997 - Norfolk (53.5)
10. 4,984 - Virginia Beach (244.7)

All this suggest is Hampton Roads is the millennial capital of the US! It's pretty obvious, there's lots of holes based on the size of a principal city, if it has incorporated suburbs with large land areas of their own. People living in unincorporated areas of an urban area would be missed as well. To be apples to apples, they need to go one step further by looking at numbers (across the board) within a certain radius of a metro's CBD or something like that.

[ProjectMaximus]

[seaspray]

I wonder if the Hampton Roads numbers are not skewed by all the young Military who end up getting stationed there

[thelakelander]

Of course they are. Metros not on this list are screwed too because the parameters used for the comparison aren't consistent.

[jaxjags]

Lakelander, I spend a lot of time in Savannah. A "small" city compared to Jax. Although this is antidotal evidence, every millennial I talk too prefers Jacksonville to Savannah. Less expensive, much better beaches and a REAL business type DT. I think there is some truth to those numbers. We must remember Jax is just not DT. It is not a zero-sum game. The Southside/SJTC area, beaches and DT make for an attractive place for young people. Plus as I have said many time at MJ, it is one of the least taxed major cities in the US ( although I would be glad to be taxed more for better maintained parks and a comprehensive DT plan that is properly financed).

[ProjectMaximus]

I wonder if the Hampton Roads numbers are not skewed by all the young Military who end up getting stationed there

Yes but remember it is net numbers so for whatever reason, very few must have been transferred out that year.

[thelakelander]

Lakelander, I spend a lot of time in Savannah. A "small" city compared to Jax. Although this is antidotal evidence, every millennial I talk too prefers Jacksonville to Savannah. Less expensive, much better beaches and a REAL business type DT. I think there is some truth to those numbers. We must remember Jax is just not DT. It is not a zero-sum game. The Southside/SJTC area, beaches and DT make for an attractive place for young people. Plus as I have said many time at MJ, it is one of the least taxed major cities in the US ( although I would be glad to be taxed more for better maintained parks and a comprehensive DT plan that is properly financed).

The Savannah/Jax comparison would be similar for most small vs the nearest larger city situation. I'm not knocking Jax. I'm just saying the way they came up with their ranking is pretty faulty. What I'm pointing out with this list is, if you take the population for 747 square miles for every city, the list would look completely different because you'd be counting their county and suburban areas too. Even cities not showing up on the list would start to pop up. At this point, most millennials are probably moving to the suburbs anyway.

[Adam White]

I wonder if the Hampton Roads numbers are not skewed by all the young Military who end up getting stationed there

Yes but remember it is net numbers so for whatever reason, very few must have been transferred out that year.

Presumably, those transferred out are replaced in order to maintain numbers?

[ProjectMaximus]

I wonder if the Hampton Roads numbers are not skewed by all the young Military who end up getting stationed there

Yes but remember it is net numbers so for whatever reason, very few must have been transferred out that year.

Presumably, those transferred out are replaced in order to maintain numbers?

Lol I dont understand. Does it not work both ways?

My point was simply to remind that the numbers reflect net migration, so while it is no surprise that there is a lot of transience due to the military there, the 2016 stats show an unusual bump overall. It likely still is a result of the military, but probably not an every year occurrence.

[thelakelander]

The numbers are cherry picked. Maybe it's military related or maybe that metro's development patterns are shifting. It's hard to tell because there's no info on the other consolidated cities (Portsmouth, Hampton, Chesapeake, Suffork).