Report: Urban area population growth slows

Looks like another generation of Americans finds the suburban life appealing. Recently released Census Bureau estimates found that urban areas accounted for only 20% of the country’s population growth between July 2014 and July 2015. The mark is 1% lower than last year and 6.7% lower than in 2011.

According to Fortune, the older Millennials are now looking to buy their first houses, and suburban real estate is more affordable than urban properties.

Some of the trendier cities for younger adults, including New York City, Boston, and Austin, Texas, have experience slower growth. A few Rust Belt cities, including Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, lost more residents than they gained last year.

Some suburbs in the west and south experienced a significant population increase. Georgetown, Texas, a suburb of Austin, saw the biggest boom, rising 7.8% to 63,716. Other popular cities included Frisco (6.3 to 154,407), a city near Dallas; Dublin (5.5% to 57,721), which is just outside of the Bay Area; and Broomfield (5.2% to 65,065), located north of Denver.

One of the hardest decisions multifamily developers and their design teams have to make is what mix of amenities they’re going to put into each project. A lot of squiggly factors go into that decision: the type of community, the geographic market, local recreation preferences, climate/weather conditions, physical parameters, and of course the budget. The permutations are mind-boggling.