The U.S. Census Bureau is gradually releasing data gathered in the 2020 decennial. Their release of a map showing which US counties have lost population caused a small Twitter furor.
Visually speaking, it’s a lot of brown. People are leaving rural counties in favor of urban areas with jobs and amenities.
The main facts from Home for a Millennial were: 1) although millennials were slower to buy homes, they are trying to buy them now and bidding up housing prices in desirable metros 2) millennials were more likely to live with parents than previous generations, so that’s part of the answer to where they were prior to the home buying scramble 3) the previously-not-house-buying phenomenon is not associated with chronic unemployment
Buying a home in the desirable areas is going to be expensive, unless there has been a lot of building. Texas, the leader in building, added more than 1.5 million housing units in the last decade. The map above illuminates what “moving to Texas” means. At the county level, some people are leaving Texas. However, the booming cities of Texas are really booming.
Being the largest generation, millennials are going to be a factor in the general move from rural to urban areas. I have about two peer friends who, after graduate school, moved to a rural place. They are garden influencers, using hashtags like #AllTheNature. The novelty of growing their own vegetables has earned them a minor celebrity status among my internet circles. How trad of them. The exception proves the rule. Most millennials don’t want to farm or even dabble in raising goats. If I grew up in farm country, my social media experience would be very different, so I don’t want to conclude too much from my bubble. The Census data confirms it. Many young Americans are gathering into the cities and leaving the rural areas.
I have a (white) Boomer relative who has 4 siblings. He was born in Iowa. I remember him telling me that his large family would drive 2 hours to visit another large family, for fun. He said the only thing to do for entertainment was visit each other’s kids. Those 5 siblings “escaped” cold Iowa in favor of the more desirable metro areas, and they did not go on to have large families of their own.
The move to cities and the shortage of housing therein connects with the delay on forming families (relative to past generations). Expensive housing could be delaying desired children, or millennials who don’t want children could be moving to places that are more fun than the farm.
Aside from rural America losing population, the other big result from the Census was the increase in racial diversity, which is also driven by young people.
The Two or More Races population (also referred to as the Multiracial population) has changed considerably since 2010. The Multiracial population was measured at 9 million people in 2010 and is now 33.8 million people in 2020, a 276% increase.
Has anyone offered a simple narrative that relates the increasing racial diversity with the urban land grab?
Economist Writing Every Day 
https://austinvernon.eth.link/blog/ruralfuture.html Long read on rural America
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