One assumption about population migration is that people are moving from one major metro to another in search of work and lower living costs, going from gateway cities to the Sun Belt.

As often happens, common assumptions can overlook something significant. In this case, there's an entirely different twist proven by Census Bureau data, as Hamilton Lombard, estimates program manager of the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia, recently wrote. Younger people are moving to small towns and rural counties at rates not seen since, at least, the 1970s.

Through the 1970s, the population size from ages 25 to 44 in MSAs with fewer than 250,000 people or in rural counties began to fall until sometime during the early 1990s when the change in population from migration crossed a zero line and became negative. This continued until early in the 2010s, when, at about a loss of 1.5% annually, the trend reversed and started to climb sharply.