It’s often said that young people are leaving Vermont in droves and how serious this problem is. Politicians and business leaders like to remind us that we urgently need to do something to keep them here. But this so-called Flight of the Millennials may actually be just a flight of fancy.
A new report from the Public Assets Institute based on IRS data, shows that while about 15,000 people under 36 years of age do leave the state every year, about the same number of other young people move to Vermont.
Of course all movement is not equal. Most young people coming here move to Chittenden County, where most of the opportunity and hi-tech jobs exist. Southern and rural Vermont continue to see young people move away.
So all this makes me wonder if instead of trying to stem the flow of young people from Vermont, we should be prioritizing ways of attracting young people to move here from away.
When I was young I couldn’t wait to leave Vermont. While I loved it here, it felt like a very small and confining place to grow up in.
And when I left, I really left, moving all the way to Stockholm Sweden to start the first of my various careers. Living in a very different culture, with a new language, in a unique city had profound, positive impacts on my life.
I was planning on NEVER moving back. And yet move back I did, about a month before my first child was born.
In part, I moved back here because it’s a safe and beautiful place to raise kids. In part, I wanted to be closer to my aging Mom. And my wife and I were convinced that, for our careers, we didn’t need a big city – though that last part still turned out to be a challenge.
In a few years, my kids will be off to college. And I fully expect they’ll leave Vermont in search of new stimulation, greater opportunity, and themselves. I can’t wait to see where they end up, hear about their new experiences, and visit them to see how they’ve created new lives.
In other words, I’m actively supporting the idea of them leaving Vermont. I’m convinced that living in other, newer and even bigger places can be beneficial in many ways. And then I’m hoping, if I’m really, really lucky, that my kids will eventually move back - when it’s time for them to raise their own families.
