Want to be on the cutting edge of the hot new trend in housing?

It may be time to take a second look at the suburbs.

After bleeding population for the better part of a decade, northern New Jersey's suburbs appear to be swinging back into favor, new Census data shows.

That's right, those places with garages and yards once seen as so uncool might be on the rebound as Millennials begin seeking greener pastures.

Hunterdon, Monmouth and Warren saw their year-over-year population losses slow or halt between 2016 and 2017, while more urbanized counties like Hudson and Union experienced significant slowdowns in their recent breakneck growth.

"It could be a blip in the data, but we were quite surprised," said James Hughes, dean emeritus of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

While one year doesn't make a trend, Hughes, who has been studying the flight from the suburbs since 2014, said it's worth noting that housing prices in urbanized counties have skyrocketed with the demand of recent years.

That might be sending young people looking elsewhere for more affordable living, especially as they begin to think about growing their families.

"It could be that they're going to follow the same pattern of previous generations," Hughes said.

Many suburbs in both northern and southern New Jersey still don't offer the walkable downtowns and access to transit prized by current home buyers.

Hughes said the coming years could be pivotal in shaping the demographic profile of the state's 565 municipalities, as urban centers work to retain new residents and suburban and rural areas attempt to lure them away with the promise of more space and lower taxes.

Towns like Somerville, in Somerset County, are hoping they are uniquely situated to attract young home buyers.

Somerville is one of the few towns in New Jersey's more rural counties that is based around a traditional downtown with a train station. Mayor Ellen Brain said the town of about 12,000 has bet heavily on this, and is seeing it pay dividends.

"There was nobody coming to Somerville," Brain said, noting she was continuing the work of previous administrations. "We took a look at data on what we would need to move Somerville from where it was, which was failing."

The town approved the development of new apartments downtown, which drew in a younger audience. New businesses followed to what was already a fairly well-known restaurant scene.

Today, Somerville's housing stock has regained most of the value it lost following the recession, something only a handful of municipalities can claim.

"We have a very low available housing stock right now," said Council President Granville Brady. "It used to be you'd have a for sale sign on every block. Now people put up their houses and they sell in just a few days."

Hughes said there will be challenges for both urban and suburban communities in the years moving forward. Popular urban centers like Jersey City have soaring housing prices and low-ranked schools.

Meanwhile, suburban towns built out in the sprawl of the 1980s and 1990s have no central downtown, have an abundance of antiquated office space and no immediate access to public transit.

"Everything is in flux," he said. "We're destroying jobs and creating new ones at the same time. But there can be some pretty quick adaptations that towns can make."

Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook.