It’s official: The trend of migration out of large cities and into smaller towns among young professionals in the United States is not just a blip. It had already begun before the COVID-19 pandemic, and its continuing acceleration seems set to reimagine the future of small-town America.
During the 2010s, around 30,000 big-city residents between the ages of 25 and 39 were moving away each year. That number grew tenfold to nearly 300,000 in 2023. A University of Virginia census analysis shows this was the first time since the 1970s that small towns beat out larger urban areas for net migration gains.
The cost of housing – more space for less money – is, of course, a major driver. (And paying for child care in a major metro area, it’s been said, can feel like taking out a second mortgage.) But just as much as the dollars saved, the intangible values of life in the slow lane are a draw. These include neighborliness and social connection, less time in traffic, easier access to the outdoors, and opportunities for creative enterprise.
Another type of connection also makes relocation attractive – reliable internet. The demand for fast Wi-Fi can also prompt rural areas to improve business services overall. In little Rutland, Vermont (population 16,000), a new coworking space supports business startups and networking for newcomers and longtime residents.
Transplanted urbanites frequent the local café and the grocery store, and help create new businesses. They may find economic and social mobility easier to achieve in a reinvigorated small town. One study shows that larger, densely populated cities can be “less conducive to the American Dream.”
About 10 years ago, on a 100,000-mile journey through America, reporters James and Deborah Fallows found that small towns “can be acutely aware of being looked down on by big-city fashionable America. Sometimes that condescension is spirit-breaking. Sometimes it is motivating.” More often than not, they encountered motivation: “I can open a restaurant here, I can get a house here, I can build a company here.”
Such enthusiasm is not misplaced; it’s being borne out by fresh data. From 2019 to 2023, one real estate platform reports, applications to launch new businesses in the smallest metro areas and rural counties shot up 13% faster than in other parts of the U.S.
