Passing Peak Millennial: Planning for Demographic Change in Mid-sized and Large Metropolitan Areas in Canada and the United States

Abstract

The Millennial generation has been reshaping cities in the United States and Canada as their Boomer parents did before them. Prior research explored the relationship among the changing size of the young adult cohort, household formation, and progression into home ownership at a national level in the United States (Myers, 2016). Finding that the size of the Millennial cohort reached its apex, or “peak Millennial,” in 2015, Myers’ research suggests that the generational pressure on the housing market from young adults will now begin to decline. In reproducing Myers’ research from original data in the United States and replicating it in Canada, I find similar timing but different patterns in the rise and fall of those peaks. I also find the “peak Millennial” concept misses net immigration and local variation, so I develop a novel “index of generational congestion” that quantifies the flows of cohorts in and out of the housing market in mid-sized and larger metropolitan areas in Canada and the United States. While I find some evidence of increasing congestion from young adults, this varies widely. I further find an increasing rate of seniors leaving some Canadian housing markets that far outpaces new young adults. I conclude with recommendations for how local planners and policymakers can use this new index to understand the generational changes happening in their housing market.