The one downside of living in Boise, the best US city for millennials - Business Insider

Boise and other mid-size cities like Portland, Oregon, and Charlotte, North Carolina, are booming as millennials move away from bigger cities like San Francisco and New York because of skyrocketing housing costs, as Business Insider's Hillary Hoffower recently reported.Boise's safety, affordability, and burgeoning tech and creative scenes make it attractive to young families and individuals, according to Livability.But for all its appeal, Boise has one major drawback that might make some big-city dwellers think twice about moving there: Its public transportation is severely lacking.The Boise metro area has 25 bus routes but most buses come just every 30 minutes, at best, and stop running after about 7 p.m. Boise once had a passenger railway that connected it to nearby cities such as Caldwell, Nampa, and Meridian, but it hasn't been in service since 1928. Many longtime Boise residents, however, don't care about their city's attractiveness to millennials from California and Washington — they'd simply like people to stop moving there altogether.While those migrating from cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle may find Boise to be a cheap place to live, the city's growth hasn't been as friendly to some longtime residents, who struggle not only with limited public transportation but also fast-growing living costs.Lauren McLean, Boise's newly elected mayor, told me it's becoming more and more difficult for people to buy a home and live in Boise "because of the increased cost of living, the lack of good transportation that moves people from home to work, and lack of houses whose prices are actually in line with our wages here."Still, Boise prices are low compared to the Western coastal cities many of its transplants are moving from.