Maybe it’s the abundance of coffee shops or variety of restaurants and bars, but a growing number of millennial-aged young adults are choosing to live in Jacksonville’s Riverside area.
Thursday afternoon University of North Florida English major Erika Fewster was working on homework at Brew coffee shop in Five Points. She moved to the area a couple months ago.
“It’s definitely not as expensive as where I was living before. I was living over by the Town Center and it’s really convenient and I can walk everywhere,” she said.
Including to work. She works at Brew and sees lots of people her age in and out of the shop. She estimates the most common age demographic in the area is between 18 and 35.
“That whole range is all I see here,” Fewster said.
That’s in line with an analysis by RENTcafe using Census data. It shows Jacksonville’s 32204 ZIP code, encompassing most of Riverside and some of Lavilla, has seen a 45 percent increase in millennials over the past five years.
The area beats out ZIP codes in Orlando and Miami, also making the Top-10 list.
Nationally, 32204 ranks No. 6 out of the 30 biggest cities. Downtown Los Angeles’ 90014 ZIP code ranks first with a 91 percent increase in millennials. In addition, Chicago, Illinois’ 60661 has the largest share of millennials, 73 percent.
RENTcafe defines millennials as people born between 1977-1996. For the analysis it factored out ZIP codes with less than 1,000 millennial residents, as well as ZIP codes which overlapped with University Campuses and U.S. Military Bases or contained penitentiaries and correctional facilities.
Reporter Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride
