Putting down roots
Dallas deemed No. 3 destination for millennials on the move from 'weird' Texas city
Make Dallas weird, too? The DFW population has boomed in recent years, but contrary to popular belief, not everyone's coming from California. Millennials on the move, just down the road, from Austin.
At age 26, nearly 70 percent of people who were born from 1984 to 1992 and raised in Austin remained there (keeping Austin plenty weird), according to a new report. That leaves more than 30 percent of millennials who moved elsewhere.
Data compiled by researchers at Harvard University and the U.S. Census Bureau pinpoints Dallas as the No. 3 target for millennials who lived in Austin at age 16 and grew up there but lived somewhere else in the U.S. at age 26. Dallas attracted 2.8 percent millennial movers born from 1984 to 1992 (a large subset of the millennial generation) who grew up in Austin.
Houston ranked No. 1, attracting 3.9 percent of millennial movers from the Capital City. Then came No. 2 San Antonio, with 3.1 percent. Behind Dallas is Killeen (1.3 percent), and Fort Worth (1.2 percent). These were the only Texas cities to surpass the 1 percent mark for the share of millennials born from 1984 to 1992 who had moved away from Austin. In 2022, these millennials are celebrating birthdays from 30 to 38.
Los Angeles (0.86 percent) was the top out-of-state destinations for Austin-raised, on-the-move millennials.
The list of Texas places that sent millennials to Austin looks very similar. The top five are Houston (6.7 percent of movers born from 1984 to 1992 who came to Austin), Dallas and San Antonio (3.7 percent each), Fort Worth (2 percent), and Brownsville (1.6 percent).
Los Angeles is the only out-of-state destination that broke the 1 percent barrier for millennials who relocated to Austin (1.6 percent), followed by Chicago (0.97 percent), Washington, D.C. (0.63 percent), Detroit (0.51 percent), and Boston and New York City (0.49 percent each).
The geographic regions cited in the report are not metro areas but, instead, are commuting zones. A commuting zone represents a collection of counties that define an area’s labor market.
Researchers relied on federal tax, population, and housing data to assemble the report.
The statistics largely align with nationwide trends. The researchers say 80 percent of young-adult movers in the U.S. had relocated less than 100 miles from where they grew up and 90 percent had moved less than 500 miles.
“The majority of young adults stay close to home,” the researchers explain. “Average migration distances are shorter for Black and Hispanic young adults than for White and Asian young adults. Average migration distances are also shorter for those with lower levels of parental income.”
“For many individuals,” the researchers conclude, “the ‘radius of economic opportunity’ is quite narrow.”
