Millennials chicken out of urban-living

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As we know, the pandemic has encouraged all sorts of random consumer behavior among different demographics. We’ve seen an increase in entertainment spend, decrease in travel spend, and there was that month we ran out of toilet paper. The most recent surprise consumer change was discovered when Tractor Supply Co., a popular rural US retailer, released their 2020 earnings.

They found significant growth in chicken sales over the past year, half of which to new customers. This is thought to be the result of millennials moving from big cities to more rural areas during the pandemic. Homeownership rates are growing fastest among those under age 44 and rural population growth among millennials has increased by 3% in February according to a study by Prevedere.

Personally, I don’t have any plans to ditch city-living anytime soon, but it’s nice to know I’d be in good company if I did (referring to the chickens).

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I think the switch for millenials to go from urban living to the suburbs was going to be inevitable. The pandemic just sped things up for them. Paying sky high rents to live in a building with no yard, no ability to build and fix your own stuff, and roomates with tiresome quirks gets very old once you approach 30.

As for the chickens, all the shut downs and lockdowns finally made people realize that the conveniences of life in an industrial society are not an automatic guaruntee. Modern day convenience is the exception, not the rule, to human existence. I think people going back and learning the basic human skills to be self-sufficient is a good thing. Raising chickens is one of them.