Adobe Stock/Elenathewise

Where do millennials want to live? Most conversations revolve around their desire to live in urban environments, but are there also millennials who want to live in the 'burbs?

The jury is still out, says CityLab writer Kriston Capps, and new simulations show that there is evidence for the growth of both urban and suburban housing. Capps writes:

The back-to-the-city and secret-suburb camps are talking past one another, says Hyojung Lee, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Inconsistent definitions of urban areas help to explain why. For example, researchers looking at core counties in metropolitan areas draw different conclusions from researchers looking at neighborhoods above a certain housing density threshold—because they’re looking at differing things.

In Lee's simulation, by the year 2035, the share of young and not-so-young adults living in the city may be at the same high levels seen today, indicating that this trend is an enduring shift rather than a blip driven by the recession. If present trends continue, then the more-diverse, less-married Millennial generation may never need to trade in the Uber Pool for the minivan.

Read More