Detroit's still far from a Millennial destination

Detroit's downtown and Midtown certainly crossed into comeback territory over the past few years, but Motown's got a long way to go to become a hip place where Millennials want to live.

According to a piece in The Atlantic, all of southeast Michigan offers young workers and couples very affordable housing, but the upward economic mobility that makes a city a desirable place to start a career is completely missing.

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic reports on a 2013 study that compared housing affordability and social mobility across the nation. The result was a confounding lack of overlap, with very few cities offering both for the new generation.

The map below (red is bad) shows that economic opportunity is a big non-selling point for much of Michigan, as well as most of the Great Lakes region and the South. 

Chetty Map

Thompson explains the phenomenon this way:
"... it's about a broader dilemma for young workers and, in particular, young couples looking to buy a home, raise children, and achieve the American Dream. The cities with the least affordable housing often have the best social mobility. And the cities with the worst social mobility often have the most affordable housing. When good jobs for the middle class and affordable homes are living in different cities, it represents a slow-motion splintering of the American Dream.

In 2013, (Harvard economist Raj) Chetty and a phalanx of economists produced a one-of-a-kind study on intergenerational mobility—that is, the odds that low-income households can work their way into the middle class and above. Comparing social mobility by metro area, they discovered that the American Dream is alive in many cities, like Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and San Jose. But it's dying in others, particularly across the southeast and the Rust Belt, where cities are spread out, segregated, and blighted by bad schools and broken families.

"But many young people aren't choosing to move to a city because they've heard that a Harvard economist said it was really good for intergenerational mobility. They move for more short-term financial reasons. They want to live affordably. 

By the way, if you want to get a good look at what kinds of metropolitan settings Detroit is competing with, take a look at this gorgeous photo of Salt Lake City: