Several years ago, I told my mom that I wanted to live in a city when I was older. I meant somewhere like Chicago or New York, and she knew that. But she didn't say anything.

When my grandparents were growing up in Detroit, people wanted to live in the suburbs. It meant you had money enough to be able to afford a backyard and a porch. Men aspired to leave their day jobs every evening and venture back to their homes — those which their wives so lovingly tended to. Women were subjugated but they came to represent the suburban lifestyle: the neighborhood kids, the park benches, the picnics and the welcoming houses.

Cities, my mom told me, are glorified.

They're overdone, not all they're cracked up to be, not an appropriate place to raise a family, and above all, not nearly as beautiful as they are in movies and TV shows.

We watch TV shows like Sex and the City and we see the glamour, the clothing, the lights, Madison Avenue, men and women living alone in apartments they likely wouldn't be able to afford in the real world, and other emblems —mostly designer labels—that are expensive and extremely satisfying to look at.

I'm no expert, but it's harder these days, I believe, to stop people from moving. A student can move across the country and still spend hours of their day communicating with their family and friends in the place they left if they should choose to. Technology dominates distance.

It's easier to make a life away from home, in some ways, because it's easier to get back.

In truth, though, I think millennials are underestimated.

Cities have opportunities and if one idea has been put forth in the millennial brain more than anything else —for better or worse— it is that opportunities are endless.

What's funny is that if you talk to a lot of young people these days, particularly those who don't necessarily have six figure salaries or aren't founders of the latest million-dollar startup in their first few years out of college, they are completely aware of the reality that they will probably be living in less than perfect conditions, should they venture to a big city. They are no stranger to the fact that they could probably be living much more comfortably in a less expensive place, or even better, in the area they grew up.

Coming from a big small town (as I call it) and now living in what I'd consider a model college town, the possibilities seem endless. There is an exodus of millennials taking place before our eyes; people are fleeing the suburbs and the towns for the big cities they dream of.

They are not ignorant of what they face; in fact, they are over-prepared. Their expectations are lower than one may think, because they have been told time and time again to not expect a Sex and the City-esque city.

We are dreamers, self-made urbanites and we are very aware of the reality we face in the cities we see in the movies. In truth, many of us have worked very hard to get there and we deserve the opportunity to prove that.

Alas, I figure, if cities are glorified, perhaps I'd like to glorify myself a bit too.