Youngsters flocking to live in city
NUMBER OF RESIDENTS IN 21-30 AGE GROUP SHOOT UP BY 51 PER CENT OVER 15 YEARS
MANCHESTER has seen a surge in young people flocking to the city.
There were 440,221 people living in our city in 2002, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. By 2017, that number had climbed to 555,610 people – an increase of 115,389 or 26 per cent.
While most age groups have seen a rise during those 15 years, the number aged between 21 and 30 has grown nearly twice as fast, soaring by 51pc over the period.
As of 2017 there were 129,458 young people in Manchester. That is up by 43,875 people from the 85,673 in 2002.
That surge could be explained by younger people being more likely to want to work in a city in the hope of securing a better job and salary.
A 2015 report from the Centre for Cities found that: “Young people tend to prefer having good access to leisure facilities, culture, transport and jobs – which explains why students and young skilled professionals are attracted to city centre locations.”
Two age groups in Manchester actually saw a fall in population between 2002 and 2017.
In 2002 there were 24,236 people aged between 71 and 80, a figure that had dropped to 21,077 as of 2017. And the number of people aged between 81 and 90 fell by 148 people to 12,511 over the same period. Overall, there were 1.15 million people living in Greater Manchester in 2002 – a figure that climbed to 1.34 million as of 2017. Salford, in particular, also saw a surge in the number of young people aged 21 to 30, up from 12,917 to 22,812 – a rise of 9,895 – while Stockport saw the smallest increase in the number of young people living there, up by just 399 between 2002 and 2017. Rebecca McDonald, analyst at the Centre for Cities, said: “Our research found that the rejuvenation of city centre living has been largely driven by single twenty-something students and professionals. “Young people are drawn to city centre living by a combination of access to jobs, leisure facilities and cultural pursuits. “But with higher demand comes higher prices. Around 30pc of city centre residents we studied cited housing costs as one of their least favourite things about living in city centres. To address this, policy makers should look at ways of increasing the supply of housing in city centres and places with good connections to the centre.”