The 20 U.S. Cities Where Millennials Are Moving

The top American city for Millennials on the move is Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can view the full list of the top cities for Millennial transplants below.

By Michele Debczak |
/ Luis Alvarez/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Millennials are entering their late 20s, 30s, and early 40s, making them prime candidates for major life changes. Whether they’re moving to take new jobs, start families, or find more desirable housing, today’s not-so-young adults seem to prefer certain cities over others when settling down. According to data from the United States Census Bureau, the 20 American cities below attracted the greatest proportions of Millennial transplants in 2022.

To determine the top locations for Millennials on the move, SmartAsset looked at the Census Bureau's One-Year ACS for 2022. They then ranked cities based on which ones boasted the most newly arrived Millennials by percentage of the population. For the study, members of the Millennial generation were defined as being born between 1978 and 1997, though Pew defines the cutoff years as 1981 and 1996.

The No. 1 city for transplants in that age range in 2022 was Cambridge, Massachusetts. Millennials made up 37.74 percent of the population of the greater Boston area city last year, and nearly three quarters of them had moved from elsewhere. Right behind it is Santa Clara, California, where 13.26 percent of the population were Millennial transplants in 2022. Seattle, Washington; Sunnyvale, California; and Denver, Colorado, also rank high on the list. 

While Millennials are often depicted as itching to leave the place where they grew up the first chance they get, the majority of them live within 100 miles of their hometown. Here are more facts about Generation Y you should know.

The Top 20 U.S. Cities for Millennial Transplants

  1. Cambridge, Massachusetts
  2. Santa Clara, California
  3. Seattle, Washington
  4. Sunnyvale, California
  5. Denver, Colorado
  6. Arlington, Virginia
  7. Bellevue, Washington
  8. Killeen, Texas
  9. Austin, Texas
  10. Sandy Springs, Georgia
  11. Savannah, Georgia
  12. Boulder, Colorado
  13. Alexandria, Virginia
  14. Columbia, South Carolina
  15. Washington, District of Columbia
  16. Portland, Oregon
  17. Tempe, Arizona
  18. Boston, Massachusetts
  19. Nashville, Tennessee
  20. Clarksville, Tennessee
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