Millennials are reportedly an "urban generation." They want to live in walkable, bustling areas, where they can live, work, and play all in one space. But it's not just an anecdote--a recent paper published in the journal Regional Studies proved that Gen Y is actually happiest living in a city.
The study charts the happiness of these generations since the 1970s across an “urban-rural happiness gradient,” which distinguishes between cities of more than 250,000 people and places with fewer than 250,000. It gauges happiness on a three-point scale, based on whether people report that they are “not too happy,” “pretty happy,” or ”very happy” on a day-to-day basis. The researchers fashion regression models that identify the levels of happiness associated with types of places across generations, while controlling for factors like income, education, race, marital status, health, and others.
When it comes to place, Millennials are different from the generations that came before them. Unlike older Americans, they tend to be happier in larger, more urban environments. As the charts below show, for most of the period since 1970, people have been much happier in smaller, less urban places. But that started to change recently—around the year 2010—as the back-to-the-city movement accelerated. Millennials are the only generation that is happier in places with a population of more than 250,000.
Using metro-level data, the authors found that “Millennials are least happy in small rural areas, much happier in small urban areas, a little less happy in the suburbs and the most happy in the largest metropolitan areas.” Again, we see this in contrast to the happiness of other generations, which falls as places become larger and more urban. This generational effect is statistically significant, according to the study, and more pronounced than that of either gender or race.
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