I'm a "Millennial" and wouldn't be caught dead in "Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Richmond, Va.; Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester, N.Y.; and Manchester, N.H." No thank you.

Probably 90% of my friends live in major cities - NY, Boston, SFO, Philly, DC.

That being said, I also do not plan on living in the DC area permanently. As the article rightly points out, we have too much student loan debt and too little income to afford this area with children. I'm going to TX, CO, OR, WA long before any of the other cities on the list.

sorry premise of article seems like bunk. kids dont move where they want to live, they move to where the jobs are.

palo alto, sfo have venture capital funding startups.
boulder funded by defense and tourism.
seattle, amazon and msft ventures.
dc... hip??.. no jobs from federal and govt contracting

that initial premise seems pretty flawed. bostons big industry is schools and biotech, both of which are not hot right now so hence fewer jobs. and if boston drives them away with high cost housing, hello, dc and sfo are even more expensive, even with jobs

as far as if millenials will drive trends, hard to tell but they have very little disposable income, so as recognized by PACS, money is a form of speach and in this regard they will probably have to keep quiet. i think most everything will stall for a generation as the economy deleverages, including styles and trends and migration.

They are the lost generation and won't matter if they get stuck in a rut due to the economy. And then they will be old and the focus will on the next generation. No more spotlight attention as they have been used to. Know one cares.

http://www.governing.com/columns/eco-engines/col-are-cities-ready-for-millennials.html

From the article:

Here are the facts most people know: For the foreseeable future, the so-called millennials (currently ages 18-30) will drive both the housing market and the fast-growing innovation economy. It’s a huge cohort of about 70 million people. And as I mentioned above, they are gravitating toward a select group of metros and small cities.

But there are a couple of other facts that we don’t usually think about. Most people settle down by age 35, and usually don’t move from one metro area to another after that. And the demographic group behind the millennials is a lot smaller. Just like baby boomers, the preferences of the millennials will drive our society for two generations. They’re making location decisions based on their idea of quality of life. And they’re going to make all those decisions in the next few years -- by the time they’re 35.