Top 15 Cities Where Gen Z Is Moving: 2023

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When it comes to pulling up stakes and moving to another location, Generation Z is showing starkly different preferences than other groups, according to recent research from Today’s Homeowner, which provides home improvement programming in various formats.

Overall trends indicate that Americans are leaving big cities and expensive states for warmer climates and lower costs of living. Not Gen Z movers.

They are heading to the same big cities their older counterparts have found too expensive or crowded. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia all had net migration increases for Gen Z while showing net decreases for all other groups, Today’s Homeowner found.

To find out which cities Americans are leaving and moving to, Today’s Homeowner analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s 2021 1-year American Community Survey for Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, baby boomers and those 75 and older.

Researchers looked at two metrics: the number of people moving into a city from a different state, and the number moving out of a city to a different state. They then calculated net migration for 152 cities and all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and ranked cities by net migration.

See the gallery for the 15 cities with the highest net migration by Gen Z.

(Image: Shutterstock)