RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond is becoming a magnet for millennials, ranking seventh in the nation as a top city for this generation to work and live, according to a new study by Commercial Cafe.
The study measured population trends, income, cost of living, employment, health coverage and educational attainment.
The metro Richmond area has seen a 10.9% increase in its millennial population over the last five years, with the Scott's Addition area seeing particularly strong growth.
"The reason why I've stayed and never thought about leaving Richmond, Virginia is because it's home," said Christopher Reed, a 30-year-old Richmond-based designer.
CBS 6 talked to Michael Ivey with the Greater Richmond Partnership, an organization that works to attract businesses to central Virginia and monitors population trends.
"The article takes a look at several different factors, one of them being affordability. We are five to six percent underneath the national average for cost of living index," Ivey said.
Job opportunities are another major draw for the millennial generation, which includes those born between 1980 and 1996.
"People are going to want to move where there are job opportunities. So if you look at some of the projects that we've worked on, whether it's CoStar, Simply Safe, the Lego Project, all of these are really big business-to-consumer names that people can recognize and have a lot of faith in," Ivey said. "When it comes to local businesses and who they're trying to hire, millennials are in their sweet spot."
Richmond also ranks fifth among southern cities for millennial residents.
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