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Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

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Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#51

Post by aaronbrethorst »

nostromo wrote: post #20

I'm noticing this play out on the ground in Seattle. There's a big box Target opening up right downtown. It used to be that if you wanted anything from Target, WalMart, BestBuy, etc., you had to go on an adventure to the suburbs. I've noticed other retailers are making moves to smaller stores located in city centers (like BestBuy recently announced http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/04/best-buy-releas... ). Al…

Northgate isn't out in the suburbs, it's quite well inside of Seattle's city limits. And Amazon is actually doubling down on their presence in South Lake Union.

> I know a number of young people who would stay away from Microsoft because of the dreaded commute to Redmond.

I did it for four years and will never do it again, Connector or not.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#52

Post by datasage »

TheFuture wrote: post #22
learc83 wrote: post #5

There's plenty of truth in that article, but I can't help but think that this trend is almost purely a product of demographic changes. People wait longer to get married and have children, so there way more 25-30 year olds who worry more about living within walking distance to a bar and less about a backyard and a nice school. Many of the urban Gen Y the article talks about will move back to the suburbs when they have…

EXACTLY. This notion that gen y is some sort of elightend urban dweller is ridiculous. Gen y is the most immature gen ever in American history. They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior, and just throw the bill on some low interest student loans. No wonder they all rent, their credit is terrible. And then they don't get that 80k job handed to them, so they still work at Starbucks at 26yrs…

While I agree there are schools that are terrible, student success is not solely the responsibly of the school. A child that is in a stable home environment that values education and exploration can probably do just as much as a good school can.

Now we tend to self segregate and choose to live in places with people like us. As professionals choose to live in cities instead of suburbs, schools around them will likely be better funded.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#53

Post by hkarthik »

datasage wrote: post #52
TheFuture wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY. This notion that gen y is some sort of elightend urban dweller is ridiculous. Gen y is the most immature gen ever in American history. They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior, and just throw the bill on some low interest student loans. No wonder they all rent, their credit is terrible. And then they don't get that 80k job handed to them, so they still work at Starbucks at 26yrs…

While I agree there are schools that are terrible, student success is not solely the responsibly of the school. A child that is in a stable home environment that values education and exploration can probably do just as much as a good school can. Now we tend to self segregate and choose to live in places with people like us. As professionals choose to live in cities instead of suburbs, schools around them will likely…

Once you're a parent, you'll worry about two things with regards to school choices:

1) Curriculum 2) Safety

It's one thing to make the argument that most public schools are mediocre and the parents need to be more involved in their kids lives to make sure they stay focused and do well. But it's quite another to willingly send your kids to a school with drugs, gang violence, and an abundance of teen pregnancies just because you don't want to commute to work every day.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#54

Post by learc83 »

aboodman wrote: post #42
learc83 wrote: post #5

There's plenty of truth in that article, but I can't help but think that this trend is almost purely a product of demographic changes. People wait longer to get married and have children, so there way more 25-30 year olds who worry more about living within walking distance to a bar and less about a backyard and a nice school. Many of the urban Gen Y the article talks about will move back to the suburbs when they have…

It isn't entirely the having to manually drive that people don't like about driving. It's also the time and cost to run, park, insure, maintain, etc. Driverless cars won't help most of this. No matter who is doing the driving, walking a few blocks is more convenient than driving a mile. And anyway, walking is more fun. I grew up in suburbs, and the article described my experience perfectly. I may someday move away fr…

>It's also the time and cost to run, park, insure, maintain, etc. Driverless cars won't help most of this.

Driverless cars will help almost all of those. Think how much more viable zip cars would become if you didn't have to get to the car in the first place. If you could just call a car with a smartphone app and it would show up.

Parking is a non issue because it drops you off at the door, and it can go park wherever is cheapest or just head off to another customer and you can call another one later.

>walking a few blocks is more convenient than driving a mile.

That's true if you live somewhere with a climate similar to Southern California, but there are plenty of places where I definitely do not want to walk a few blocks during most of the year.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#55

Post by learc83 »

icebraining wrote: post #43
learc83 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas prices have gone up, but adjusted for inflation not outrageously so. http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasolin... Additionally gasoline isn't the only energy source. Once solar power reaches grid parity and electric cars are popular gas prices won't mean much. You're right that energy is finite and if we stay on the current energy consumption growth curve, energy will continue to get more expen…

Gas prices have gone up, but adjusted for inflation not outrageously so. But gas prices are themselves a big (maybe even the largest?) drivers of inflation, since they are not only counted themselves as they result in price raises for a lot of other products, like food.

You can look at gas prices as a percent of personal expenditures to see gasolines direct cost to the consumer. You'll see a similar curve.

http://jerrykhachoyan.com/gas-expenditures-as-a-percent-of-p...

Yes other components of personal expenditure are affected by gas prices which affects the percentage, but when an individual is considering where to live the only component of gas price that matters is it's direct cost.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#56

Post by twelvechairs »

This trend (moving back into city centres) has been around for a long time, and is well documented. The USA is slower than most of Europe on this (although they generally did not desert the city centre quite so much).

Its worth also noting that a lot of this is down to government and planning laws, which in the 1950s (generally when they were introduced on a wide scale) hugely subsidised suburban development and road building, to the expense of existing urban areas (which were largely unfunded). 60 years of cumulative common sense has led to a re-emergence of city centres as nice places to live (and cost-effective for governments) rather than the 'slums' of the early century.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#57

Post by bodigital »

icebraining wrote: post #43
learc83 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas prices have gone up, but adjusted for inflation not outrageously so. http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasolin... Additionally gasoline isn't the only energy source. Once solar power reaches grid parity and electric cars are popular gas prices won't mean much. You're right that energy is finite and if we stay on the current energy consumption growth curve, energy will continue to get more expen…

Gas prices have gone up, but adjusted for inflation not outrageously so. But gas prices are themselves a big (maybe even the largest?) drivers of inflation, since they are not only counted themselves as they result in price raises for a lot of other products, like food.

You mean indicator of inflation. Inflation is the cause.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#58

Post by jerf »

sliverstorm wrote: post #32
TheFuture wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The self driving car will be much more energy efficient, especially if they can communicate with each other to optimize traffic flow

Improving traffic flow is a win, but only a small win. Lugging around the mass of the car and yourself is still by far and away the biggest energy cost of operating a car, not sitting at a stoplight or getting stuck in stop-and-go. Clearing up 1 mile of stop-and-go is not going to make up for the 9 miles from your house to the city streets on your 10-mile commute.

The self-driving car will (eventually) be only one part of a larger ecosystem. A scheduled trip on your rent-a-car share may well take you to a dynamically-scheduled bus that will aggregate many people's trips. Also, the car you call will be only as powerful as it needs to be, so you won't be routinely driving around in an SUV when all you need is an efficient sedan for a given trip. Electric cars work much better in this environment, because they can easily either go charge up or do battery exchange on a commercial-fleet scale instead of at a neighborhood gas station.

Personally, I'm also pretty sure the net effect of self-driving cars will also be to spread out the suburbs even more too. Most people imagine self-driving cars that are still owned by you and have single-owner use patterns, but the economics of that don't work; in nothing flat owners start renting their car out during their off times, AirBnB style, and it's a short hop from there to simply providing cars as a service. Somebody is going to get very rich being the somebody who wins on the network effects and creates "the" transportation-as-a-service company. It's going to be an enormous change, and I find it unlikely it's going to play to the city's advantages in terms of people actually moving there.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#59

Post by _delirium »

learc83 wrote: post #27
batista wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Additionally the rise of the self driving car is going to completely torpedo 90% of the advantages of living in a city. The rise of what? We've seen some experimental designs, but I don't see the "rise" coming any time soon. Plus, the price of oil is more important factor --as for them "coordinating with other vehicles to increase efficiency" (as someone writes in a comment below), well, that seems marginal, especia…

>but I don't see the "rise" coming any time soon. Nevada already implemented regulations to allow companies to test drive self driving cars on its roads, and all it will take for the rest of the nation to follow is for Google get California on board. The technology is already here. It's all about regulation and politics now, and there is so much money to made that it's just a question of when not if. If I can't buy a…

I've only seen tests on highways; afaik Google's car can't yet technologically manage the process of showing up to a random spot you want it to. For example, it can drive on 280, but it can't exit 280 into SF, navigate surface streets, and pull up to the curb where you're waiting.

Re: Why Generation Y Is Causing The Great Migration Of The 21st Century

#60

Post by _delirium »

TheFuture wrote: post #22
learc83 wrote: post #5

There's plenty of truth in that article, but I can't help but think that this trend is almost purely a product of demographic changes. People wait longer to get married and have children, so there way more 25-30 year olds who worry more about living within walking distance to a bar and less about a backyard and a nice school. Many of the urban Gen Y the article talks about will move back to the suburbs when they have…

EXACTLY. This notion that gen y is some sort of elightend urban dweller is ridiculous. Gen y is the most immature gen ever in American history. They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior, and just throw the bill on some low interest student loans. No wonder they all rent, their credit is terrible. And then they don't get that 80k job handed to them, so they still work at Starbucks at 26yrs…

Well, I can think of nothing better than responding to some lazy stereotyping in one direction with some lazy stereotyping in the other direction...
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