Pew Research found in late 2021 that 43% of urban residents would
move to a different community if they could, compared with 35% of
suburban residents — an 8-point gap that puts city living on the
action-regret side of the ledger. The gap is real but narrow, and it
widened during the pandemic: between 2018 and 2021, the share of
Americans preferring suburbs climbed from 42% to 46%, while urban
preference dropped from 23% to 19%. Separately, Home Bay’s 2023 survey
of 1,000 recent movers found that 75% expressed some regret about their
move regardless of direction, suggesting that relocation itself —
not the destination — is the primary regret generator.
The asymmetry here is unusually weak compared to most regret-pair entries
in this dataset. Gilovich and Medvec’s temporal framework predicts that
inaction regret dominates over time, yet the city-vs-suburb question
resists that pattern: choosing the city (action) produces slightly more
dissatisfaction than staying in the suburbs (inaction). One explanation
is that urban living imposes daily friction — cost, noise, space
constraints — that keeps action regret salient rather than allowing it
to fade. Another is that suburbs are not really an “inaction” in any
meaningful sense; both choices are active, and framing suburbs as the
default is itself a cultural artifact of post-war American planning.
The main caveat is measurement. Pew asked about desire to leave, not
about regret for a past choice. A 25-year-old renting in Brooklyn who
wants to leave may be responding to rent pressure, not regretting a
life decision. The 75% Home Bay figure is similarly blunt — it includes
people who regret their moving company, their timing, or their square
footage, not the city-vs-suburb axis specifically. The directional
finding (city dwellers are modestly more dissatisfied than suburbanites)
is consistent across multiple surveys, but the 8-point gap should be
read as a signal of mild asymmetry, not a strong verdict.
Sources: action
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]Pew Research Center — Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities
Primary study
43% of urban dwellers say they would like to move to a different community if they could
Excerpt
“"43% of urban dwellers say they would like to move to a different community if they could, compared with 35% of suburban residents and 25% of rural residents."
”
Source data from
2021-12-16
Accessed
2026-04-26
Calculation
Pew Research Center survey of 9,676 US adults conducted Oct 18–Nov 1, 2021. The 43% figure refers to urban residents who express a desire to move to a different community. We treat this as a proxy for city-living regret: the question captures dissatisfaction intense enough to motivate relocation intent.
[2]Home Bay — 2023 Data: 75% of Americans Have Regrets About Moving
Reference source
75% of Americans who moved in 2022 have regrets about their move
Excerpt
“"Three out of four Americans (75%) have regrets about their move, including not liking their new home after all (15%) or wishing they had chosen a bigger home (20%)."
”
Source data from
2023-03-01
Accessed
2026-04-26
Calculation
Home Bay online survey of 1,000 Americans who moved in 2022, fielded December 29, 2022. The 75% figure covers all movers, not just city-to-suburb movers, and captures any regret (cost, size, location, timing). Included as contextual evidence that moving regret is pervasive regardless of direction.
Sources: inaction
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]Pew Research Center — Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities
Primary study
35% of suburban residents say they would like to move to a different community if they could
Excerpt
“"35% of suburban residents say they would like to move to a different community if they could, compared with 43% of urban dwellers."
”
Source data from
2021-12-16
Accessed
2026-04-26
Calculation
Same Pew survey as action_side. The 35% figure represents suburban residents expressing desire to move — 8 percentage points lower than the city-dweller rate, suggesting modestly lower dissatisfaction in suburban settings.
Caveats
The Pew figures measure desire to leave a community type, not retrospective regret about a past decision — they are a proxy for dissatisfaction, not a direct regret survey. The 8-percentage-point gap is modest and may fall within the survey's margin of error for subgroup comparisons. The Home Bay 75% figure applies to all movers regardless of origin or destination, so it cannot be decomposed into city-to-suburb vs suburb-to-city regret rates. Post-COVID sentiment shifted preferences toward suburbs (Pew showed suburban preference rising from 42% to 46% between 2018 and 2021), which may overstate city-living regret relative to long-run equilibrium. Age is a major confound: adults under 30 prefer cities at 31% vs 14% among those 65+, so the aggregate gap conflates lifecycle stage with genuine locational regret.
