Retaining Millenials

Haya El Nasser, writing for USA Today, reports on how cities are trying to retain millenials as they move on to marriage and kids:

The hot pursuit of young professionals has been at the core of American cities’ urban revival for more than a decade. It worked. They came, they played, they stayed.

An urban renaissance unfolded as the number of people living in America’s downtowns soared, construction of condos and loft apartments boomed and once-derelict neighborhoods thrived. In many of the largest cities in the most-populous metropolitan areas, downtown populations grew at double-digit rates from 2000 to 2010, according to the Census.

Now, cities face a new demographic reality: The young and single are aging and having children. If the pattern of the past 50 years holds, they might soon set their sights on suburbia.

The problem isn’t that suburbia is inherently better for raising kids. The problem is that for many decades most of the development of family-centered infrastructure - the good schools, the parks, the grocery stores, the child care centers, the livable houses - has all been in the suburbs. If cities want to retain families, they need to provide the services and amenities that familes want and need. Cities are just as well equipped as the suburbs (probably even better) to provide for their citizens. It’s just a matter of priorities.