Midsize cities are emerging as the preferred destination for young adults and top tech talent. Remember when Amazon led America on a mad rat race, promising to bring tens of thousands of high-paying jobs to one lucky city if it offered business-friendly bids with massive tax incentives and a promise to not disclose its plans to the public? When New York City and the Washington, D.C., suburbs were finally chosen, they seemed to have been the foregone conclusion, with Jeff Bezos’ behemoth company saying it had selected the locations for their attractive talent base, among other things. Amazon eventually decided to pull out of the Big Apple, after stiff opposition from local politicians and activists. Perhaps the online retailer should have looked beyond the big lights, though. After all, the much-touted innovation hubs of America are being outpunched by their scrappier, lesser-known counterparts across the country, according to a Brookings Institution study analyzing millennial migration data from the most recent American Community Survey (ACS) results, released in February. | 