Even more than that, every person I know who in their 20s and 30s would prefer to work in the city and either do a quick commute in via public transportation or live in the city. No one wants to have to get in a car and drive for 40 minutes. If they do, they justify it due to cost, not actual benefit.
The companies that get the best people are the one's located in downtown. That alone increases productivity.
The vast majority want to live in cities. It is proven quantitatively through rents rising much faster in all the dense areas of the US while suburban rents and prices have lagged.
Sure "Lots of people don't want to live or work in a large city." is technically correct, but pretty much every other person wants to be able to walk to work, walk to resturants and never have to touch a car except for trips outside where they live. That lifestyle doesn't exist when you work in office parks.
The only argument for living in the burbs is price. People say "I want a yard"... if you had the money you would have it in the city.
Sure, some people make tradeoffs and would rather have the yard, but most people I know move to the burbs because of price and justify it with the yard. Most of the top talent lives in cities.
I would be interested in analysis and discussion of this quantitative analysis.
I'm not sure we can say that youth wanting to move into cities is the main reason for rent increasing. That would seem to make a complex market far too simple.
The article is 2 years old, but cites 2010 US Census data which found:
The article observes that 25-34 year olds were also flocking to cities in the 90's, based on data from the 2000 Census. However,
"In the last ten years, [the 25-34 year-olds from 2000's] presence grew 12% in the suburbs and shrunk by 22.7% in "historic core cities," like New York and San Francisco, according to Joel Kotkin at Forbes."
This may suggest a nuance, where urban areas are attractive to people with little relative wealth (can always find "cheap" apartments) and exploratory social lives (not yet married / having kids). And it suggests that the drive isn't necessarily novel.
But given some money and changed social needs, the same people end up moving out to where they have more space and greater comforts.
Even here in Germany, the same trend is evident -- lots of young and old people in the city centers, and a lot more families and middle-aged people out in the lower-density areas.
The rent differential can be explained by nothing more than the natural dynamics of the situation. Want to live in a big city? Probably really want to live in NYC or SanFran, right? Whereas if you want to live "in the burbs", you can go pretty much anywhere. And if you want acreage, you have even more options (assuming you can telecommute).
Was that intended to be a serious response? "I know what people really want even if they say they want something else"? People being forced into cities quantitatively proves they want to be in cities?
More space, less crime, parking, cheaper rent or mortgage, cleaner air, quieter, more green spaces, and typically only a 20-30 minute drive from the city if you actually want to go to something big-metro-specific, like the opera/museum/theater/etc.
The companies that get the best people are the one's located in downtown. That alone increases productivity.