You move to a big city when you are young. Enjoy the social activities, the night life etc. If at some point you get married, have kids etc - generally you don't get to make full use of the city anymore, though you're still paying full price.
What I see A LOT is when people have kids, if they originally came from somewhere else is that the city's shine really dulls. They move back to where they came from, especially if there's a family support structure there. At one place I worked we snatched several senior engineers leaving LA and SF for a more family oriented life.
They move back home, new young people take their place and cycle continues.
People do often stay in greater metros. They just move out of the core city. (Of course, there's no guarantee that young people move into the core en masse either. They often weren't in the 70s/80s. A city like Boston was losing population until almost 2000.)
> Half the people in the United States live within 17 miles of a decent-sized airport, and ninety percent of the country lives within 58 miles (about an hours drive). Twenty-five percent of the population lives pretty darn close: less than 9 miles.
it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro".
>> it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro"
To the extent that you consider the cities of Monroe (Louisiana), Ketchikan (Alaska), Elmira (New York), and La Crosse (Wisconsin) to be the centers of "greater metro" areas.
They're not greater metro areas in the same sense that NYC, LA, SF, or Boston are greater metro areas.
True, but I'd certainly consider those "cities" and not "rural" but you can draw the line elsewhere; whatever or wherever you draw the line a substantial group of people live "in a metro area".
The US Census defines 80% of the US population as being urban. As you say, you can draw the line anywhere and I assume the US Census is defining it as being something along the lines of being somewhat accessible to a city of not completely trivial size. Which is fine as long as people don't read that as 80% of the population living somewhere that looks anything like a sizable city.
Yeah, I don't think that's a good metric for "greater metro". Some of the "major" airports they listed were the closest for a grand total of about 3000 people.
I live in a small rural college town in upstate NY that has its own municipal airport; there are more than 3000 people here (especially during the school year!) for whom this is the closest airport, and it's...well, it's tiny, with (AFAIK) zero regular flights to or from anywhere else.
The closest cities are Utica and Syracuse, each about 30 miles away. Only Syracuse has an airport that's worth driving to if you don't own your own plane (SYR is on the list as being closest for 1.2 million people—probably including me? The maps aren't loading, so I can't tell), and I've never heard anyone describe Syracuse, NY as being a "greater metro area".
I'm not sure if there is a proper definition for an international airport, but I'd think of it as an airport with US Customs and/or Immigration services.
I think you'd be surprised how many there are, especially within a few hundred miles of the Canadian or Mexican border! My local general aviation airport, with no commercial passenger flights, is an international airport because of nearby business/industrial activity.
You could also just draw a line further up the list. 100K passengers/year is under 300/day so you may be looking at a handful of regional jet flights that are mostly (or only) to the nearest significant airport.
Just eyeballing the list, what I'd consider a "significant" airport probably has a cutoff closer to a million passengers per year.
> They move back to where they came from, especially if there's a family support structure there.
This is a big deal for workers with families and closer-to-median income. Having to pay $20,000-$30,000/yr to replace services you're getting for free from family (child care, help with home improvement/repair projects, help with transportation, all kinds of stuff) might not be that big a deal to a family making $300,000, but it's huge to a family making $70,000. A 20% increase in income made possible by moving away from family might make good sense for the former, but be break-even at best for the latter (and a losing proposition of CoL is otherwise higher than where they are).
A city is, of course, more than the kinds of things that are taken to appeal to single young people today (though studies show that the young are increasingly becoming socially isolated).
Cities are more compact than suburbs. Kids are entirely dependent on their parents and adults to drive them everywhere, so in many poorly planned suburbs and bedroom communities, they're generally stuck at home. Similarly, the elderly can become isolated from family and friends that are scattered about with no easy way to visit them, or kept from participating in the social life of their town because either there is no social life due to hostile urban planning, or because they cannot get there as driving has become more difficult with age. The benefit of living in walkable cities and towns with good public transportation is especially obvious for these age groups.
What I see A LOT is when people have kids, if they originally came from somewhere else is that the city's shine really dulls. They move back to where they came from, especially if there's a family support structure there. At one place I worked we snatched several senior engineers leaving LA and SF for a more family oriented life.
They move back home, new young people take their place and cycle continues.