Chicago: Land of the Millenials

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I'm going off of what a friend who deals with general relocation in Chicago has told me that she has seen an influx of young people in the last small handful of years that has been higher than pretty much any years before (i.e. late 90s/early 2000s) that she has ever dealt with.

Ok, but realize that's just anecdotal. I can tell you my mom lived in Carl Sandburg Village/Old Town in the late 60's/early 70's, and she always talks how Chicago was packed with 20-somethings back then. Most of her friends are people she met in that area, and they're still friends today, even though they're scattered all over the country.

Seems, to me, that Chicago was always a big destination for post collegiate types; the challenge is keeping people with education/money.

[rzzz]

I guess i would disagree that Philly is all that thriving or that Seattle is very urban or affordable. What I'm saying is that the urban and thriving places like NYC are super unaffordable, or the other thriving places like Dallas or Houston are not very "urban." Or you get an urban and cheap place like Detroit that is not thriving at all. Chicago is pretty affordable, it's very urban, and it's thriving.

I also didn't mean to suggest that the young families and yuppies were the same cohort of people. The families may be tourists for all I know. But it's nice to see a mix within the city itself. In SF where I lived for almost a decade it was rare to see families or kids anywhere in the city.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Ok, but realize that's just anecdotal. I can tell you my mom lived in Carl Sandburg Village/Old Town in the late 60's/early 70's, and she always talks how Chicago was packed with 20-somethings back then. Most of her friends are people she met in that area, and they're still friends today, even though they're scattered all over the country.

Seems, to me, that Chicago was always a big destination for post collegiate types; the challenge is keeping people with education/money.

Yes, I know it's anecdotal, obviously - I didn't have the hard data off hand and was telling you what someone who deals a lot with this stuff has told me. The problem is keeping them - yes, but I think that's always been a problem in Chicago. There's a lot of younger people who move away simply because of the winters (I know a few who have done this). I think the city is doing a better job right now than before with this and part of that has to do with the smaller, but ramping up tech scene IMO.

As an aside, I calculated what percentage of the growth of various cities were people aged 20-34 between the 2010 Census and 2013 1 year ACS estimates. Chicago and NYC are very close (Chicago at 33.5% and NYC at 33.8%). San Francisco is also pretty similar:

* Philadelphia - 65.7%
* Phoenix - 51%
* Seattle - 40.8%
* Washington DC - 36.4%
* Los Angeles - 35.7%
* New York - 33.8%
* Chicago - 33.5%
* San Francisco - 33.3%
* Atlanta - 30.1%
* Dallas - 29.2%
* San Diego - 29.1%
* Houston - 27.1%
* Miami - 23.8%
* Austin, TX - 20.1%
* Boston - 17.9%
* Portland - 14.1%

[holl1ngsworth]

Originally Posted by marothisu

I think even for the 2012 ACS the numbers are off. The ACS estimates are actually more. One of those zip codes had over 10,000 less people in the Redfin numbers than the 2010 census and 2012 ACS. The percentages may be slightly higher in the Census/ACS too, though I think they're similar to what Redfin has. So their rankings are probably not too far off from reality.

Yes, the numbers are way off...

Regardless, I don't think the survey is as revealing as it might seem. It really only uncovers where childless Millennials live.

I'm a Millenial and a parent and I moved to the western suburbs from 60654 (the top Millennial zip in Chicago) a year ago. Over the past year, my new zip has seen a rapid increase in the number of the Millennial-aged parents. Nonetheless, my new zip has no chance of ever making this list -- even if nearly all our parents were Millennials. Why? Because we're parents -- we have children! And when you start increasing the number of children per household, the percentage of the total population that is 'Millennial' will decrease.

My point? There could theoretically be a place, even a suburb, that Millenials prefer more than 60654. Such a place could be easily hidden under the surface of this generic analysis. There are probably several better approaches to take -- such as looking at what percentage of the 'adult population' in any given zip is Millennial. I imagine zips like 60614 would move up the list, given the number of children/families in Lincoln Park, and zips like 60654 would move down, given the lack of children/families in River North.

I'm not saying a suburban zip would somehow overtake any of the top 20, but accounting for children would definitely affect the conclusions of the study... albeit in a minor way. The confusing data Redfin presents, and the amateur approach used to analyze it makes me think this study is junk.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by holl1ngsworth

Yes, the numbers are way off...

Regardless, I don't think the survey is as revealing as it might seem. It really only uncovers where childless Millennials live.

I'm a Millenial and a parent and I moved to the western suburbs from 60654 (the top Millennial zip in Chicago) a year ago. Over the past year, my new zip has seen a rapid increase in the number of the Millennial-aged parents. Nonetheless, my new zip has no chance of ever making this list -- even if nearly all our parents were Millennials. Why? Because we're parents -- we have children! And when you start increasing the number of children per household, the percentage of the total population that is 'Millennial' will decrease.

My point? There could theoretically be a place, even a suburb, that Millenials prefer more than 60654. Such a place could be easily hidden under the surface of this generic analysis. There are probably several better approaches to take -- such as looking at what percentage of the 'adult population' in any given zip is Millennial. I imagine zips like 60614 would move up the list, given the number of children/families in Lincoln Park, and zips like 60654 would move down, given the lack of children/families in River North.

I'm not saying a suburban zip would somehow overtake any of the top 20, but accounting for children would definitely affect the conclusions of the study... albeit in a minor way. The confusing data Redfin presents, and the amateur approach used to analyze it makes me think this study is junk.

This study has nothing to do with whether the people have children or not. It has to do with pure clustering of ages. I think you missed the part where they said they took around 200 of the largest zip codes in the country and analyzed them. Your zip code is most likely not part of one of the top 200 in the country which is why it's not showing up (if what you say is true and it has a lot of millenials).

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by holl1ngsworth

Yes, the numbers are way off...

Regardless, I don't think the survey is as revealing as it might seem. It really only uncovers where childless Millennials live.

I'm a Millenial and a parent and I moved to the western suburbs from 60654 (the top Millennial zip in Chicago) a year ago. Over the past year, my new zip has seen a rapid increase in the number of the Millennial-aged parents. Nonetheless, my new zip has no chance of ever making this list -- even if nearly all our parents were Millennials. Why? Because we're parents -- we have children! And when you start increasing the number of children per household, the percentage of the total population that is 'Millennial' will decrease.

My point? There could theoretically be a place, even a suburb, that Millenials prefer more than 60654. Such a place could be easily hidden under the surface of this generic analysis. There are probably several better approaches to take -- such as looking at what percentage of the 'adult population' in any given zip is Millennial. I imagine zips like 60614 would move up the list, given the number of children/families in Lincoln Park, and zips like 60654 would move down, given the lack of children/families in River North.

I'm not saying a suburban zip would somehow overtake any of the top 20, but accounting for children would definitely affect the conclusions of the study... albeit in a minor way. The confusing data Redfin presents, and the amateur approach used to analyze it makes me think this study is junk.

Nearly every single family home sale in my city neighborhood is an estate sale or empty nester retiring. The buyers are amost all young couples or families. Seven or eight years ago our elementary school had half the population it has now.

[holl1ngsworth]

Originally Posted by marothisu

This study has nothing to do with whether the people have children or not. It has to do with pure clustering of ages. I think you missed the part where they said they took around 200 of the largest zip codes in the country and analyzed them. Your zip code is most likely not part of one of the top 200 in the country which is why it's not showing up (if what you say is true and it has a lot of millenials).

This really has nothing to do with my zip code. The 200 zip codes referenced to in the study are not the only zip codes they used: they are the "200... largest ZIP codes where educated millennials live" and they were used to generate "takeaways." The original data set seems to have included 33,000 zips with a population of over 1,000 people, and the spreadsheet they provide lists the top 307 Millennial zip codes.

My point: Zip codes where Millennials tend to have children are more greatly skewed than zips where Millenials tend to not have children.

Example (using ACS 2012 data from FactFinder2):

60614 (Lincoln Park)

Population total: 67,203
Population children (<17): 9,206
Population adults (total - children): 57,997
Population Millennials: 19,892

Therefore, Millenials are...

29.6% of the total population
34.2% of the adult population
Skew: -4.6%

60654 (River North)

Population total: 14,607
Population children (<17): 774
Population adults (total - children): 13,833
Population Millennials: 6,061

Therefore, Millenials are...

41.5% of the total population
43.8% of the adult population
Skew: -2.3%

As you can see, the data is skewed more greatly in zip codes where Millennials tend to have children. I'm not going to go through and do this for all the zips, but it clearly demonstrates that Millennials preference for Lincoln Park is underrepresented by Redfin. I'm sure same goes for other family-preferred zip codes. Children aren't renting or owning condos in these zips, so why should they be included in the data? We want to know where Millennials prefer to live... leave the kids out of it.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by holl1ngsworth

This really has nothing to do with my zip code. The 200 zip codes referenced to in the study are not the only zip codes they used:

You're right - I misread it.