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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

#121

Post by waterlesscloud »

rory096 wrote: post #114
waterlesscloud wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's around 10 times the cost of a car with a driver. Driverless cars will not be as cheap as cars which require drivers. There will be ongoing operational and maintenance costs which cars with drivers do not have. Liability insurance will likely be lower for driverless cars, but damage and theft insurance will likely be higher. Not every cab needs to be operated 24/7, there are clear peak and non-peak times which al…

>And, of course, there's no guarantee that any savings in operation would be passed on to the consumer (see electronic publishing). In this case it's likely that they would be. Book publishing is a rather unique case in that it's a million natural monopolies; if you want to read The Hunger Games, you're not going to be satisfied with a close substitute. Taxi services are fairly commoditized- excluding medallions, pre…

There's no reason to assume the number of driverless cars won't be artificially restricted by regulation in the same way that taxi medallions are now.

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

#122

Post by cfinke »

chrischen wrote: post #77
learc83 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the section on TV shows was nonsense as well. He cherry picked a few examples that fit his model. Off the top of my head some modern comedies that don't fit are Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, and Desperate Housewives. There were plenty of classic shows set in the city as well. Mary Tyler Moore, The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, Three's Company, Taxi, Welcome Back Kotter.

Not to mention at the end of the series Chandler and Monica move out to the 'burbs to raise a family.

Spoiler alert!

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

#123

Post by waterlesscloud »

learc83 wrote: post #113
waterlesscloud wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's around 10 times the cost of a car with a driver. Driverless cars will not be as cheap as cars which require drivers. There will be ongoing operational and maintenance costs which cars with drivers do not have. Liability insurance will likely be lower for driverless cars, but damage and theft insurance will likely be higher. Not every cab needs to be operated 24/7, there are clear peak and non-peak times which al…

Labor is by far the largest cost here. I have a pretty fair knowledge of the Google car and the Stanford cars that came before it. The equipment at scale isn't really that expensive and can be fairly easily retrofitted onto existing cars. Even if it ends up costing 50k and an extra 20k per year in maintenance (which is probably too high for a computer and a few actuators and sensors) taking driver labor out of the eq…

But as I mentioned, 5 drivers per car is overestimating considerably the actual number of drivers you need for practical coverage. You don't need your full fleet 24/7, the demand just isn't there for it around the clock.

Call it three drivers for practical coverage. Now we're at $120k for labor (3 x40k). But we've added 50k to operations in other areas. So now we're saving 70k in overall costs. Which is good, but a long way from 200k.

If you just needed 1 driver for the car, then there's a net loss with the driverless version (with these theoretical numbers anyway).

Perhaps the most efficient method would be a base fleet of driverless cars that operated 24/7, with peak times adding in cheaper cars with human drivers....

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

#125

Post by Apocryphon »

gradstudent wrote: post #110
noonespecial wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxis are expensive and severely supply side limited. Interesting things happen when things that were previously limited become much less so. People had "internet" when they dialed it at 56kbits, but things like youtube were impossible. I'd guess that self driving zip-cars would be at least as big a paradigm shift.

Taxis are expensive only for individuals. Share a cab with 2-3 other people and the costs plummet. Mix in some government subsidies and better integration with existing public transportation systems and you have a perfectly adequate cost-effective solution right now . Without any fancy robots.

There's already Internet carpool services. I'm wondering why none have taken off like Zipcars have.

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

#126

Post by meddlepal »

MrFoof wrote: post #29
scarmig wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... very weird and surprising. NYC grew by low single digits, while SF did a bit more. I incorrectly assumed this was shared across most major cities. I'm not sure how that affects my prediction, one way or another. Edited to add: a table with actual data. The 2000s have not been kind to most cities. By comparison, the USA as a whole grew 9.7% from 2000 to 2010. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-0…

Not all cities are created equally. I'm guessing Chicago is feeling much of what the same Pittsburgh is, each being on different edges of the rust belt. For example, Boston is growing at a decent rate. Boston however has a tremendous education, health care, biotech/pharma, finance and high-tech industries. Boston crime is also at all-time lows. However, small cities in Massachusetts such as New Bedford, Fall River, W…

Worcester is actually growing. I grew up in that city, lived there for most of my life, though I do not live there anymore. It's not shrinking by any means, just examining the census numbers shows it outpacing Boston in growth 4.9% to 4.8% between 2000 and 2010.

Worcester is at a cross-roads now. It has excellent proximity to Boston and Providence. It has a strong bio-medical industry as well as three highly regarded universities (Holy Cross, WPI, and Clark) as well as several smaller, less known ones. Several major hospitals too. If Massachusetts can sort out the commuter rail situation and cut travel time down to It does have its issues. Certain neighborhoods are giant crime-pits (Main South, Vernon Hill etc.) On the other hand it has an extremely safe, pleasant west-side with some pockets of high-affluence. East and North Worcester range from OK to good. It's a very spread out city despite having 180K people living in it which unfortunately means cars are a must.

It's all going to be about transportation. Commuter rail to Boston will improve, part of the deal to allow CSX to expand its freight yard in Worcester was to add 10 - 20 more trains to Worcester between now and 2020. The Pike bypasses Worcester but since the completion of the 146 connector that has stopped being a real issue. If those things occur, and it is a big-if, expect the urban-downtown area of Worcester to boom as it's a small downtown area and it will be important to tightly pack around the train station because of the lack of transportation around the rest of the city.

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

#127

Post by canadiancreed »

michaelochurch wrote: post #101

Here's the major change. Jobs don't last 5+ years on a regular basis anymore. It's very hard to have a real career without moving around, because people are either "tapped" for the best projects in the first 6-12 months in a new job, or they're not. The "not" case means that it's time to move on. You have to move around a lot (a lot more than most people are comfortable with) to have a real career. What this means is…

I completely agree with you, and this article says exactly what friends of mine have been telling me for years. Unlike most folks that fit into the Gen X/Y mold, I cant' stand living in cities, perfer living in the country, yet also enjoy being in the IT industry which makes things difficult at best. And after living in the suburbs (Kanata, ON), small towns (Perth ON, Belleville ON, and now Charlottetown, PEI) for over a decade and change, to paraphrase the Game of Thrones, "You move to the city, or you starve". Small towns not only have a small market for prospective job hunters, but if you lose a job for whatever reason, your'e hosed. Yet if the company you are working for in Toronto downsizes you, you can have five interviews the next day. It's really no contest, and unfortunately for myself, it's the way it's going to be for decades to come. Moving to anywhere outside of the larger cities will hurt in the long run.

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

#128

Post by aboodman »

learc83 wrote: post #93
aboodman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to pay for the fuel. Someone needs to pay for the insurance. Someone needs to pay for parking, the technical development, the maintenance, and the infrastructure. Guess who that someone is? You. In the fees you pay for this service (or in taxes that subsidize it). No matter how much tech you throw at it, walking down to the corner market for vegetables is more efficient (in a purely value/cost sense) th…

>Someone needs to pay for the fuel. Someone needs to pay for the insurance. Someone needs to pay for parking, the technical development, the maintenance, and the infrastructure. Of course they do. But the average car is only driven a few hours a day. If you take the total fixed costs of a car and divide it amongst dozens of people, it's much cheaper than ownership. I also expect insurance prices to drop dramatically…

> Of course they do. But the average car is only driven a few hours a day. If you take the total fixed costs of a car and divide it amongst dozens of people, it's much cheaper than ownership.

OK, without the actual numbers it's hard to debate the details here. Maintenance will obviously be higher, and depending on the competition and regulation, cost could vary dramatically.

But we're getting off topic. Earlier, you said:

> the rise of the self driving car is going to completely torpedo 90% of the advantages of living in a city.

Saving money on car ownership is not 90% of the value of urban life for me, and never has been.

> However, I think it's almost purely a result of demographic shifts not some new desire to live in cities. Young childless people have always wanted to live in the city, we just have more of them than we used to.

I don't believe this either, and it's what I was getting at earlier. I don't foresee myself every living outside of walking distance from essentials, especially once I have children. I hear the same from my peers, but I guess time will tell.

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

#129

Post by gammarator »

sbierwagen wrote: post #94
nitrogen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They treat college like a party, an excuse to extend childish behavior Are you sure this is a recent phenomenon? Just two examples I'm aware of: 1978: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/ 1985: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/

Pointless addendum: Animal House was made in 1978, but set in 1961. Rolling Stone recently ran an article on the fratboy culture at Dartmouth: (the university "Faber College" was based on) http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-i...

"The Real Animal House" [1] is also worth a read--it's about the Dartmouth fraternity experiences of one of the authors of Animal House. Somehow it makes the recreational vomiting seem more fun than the Rolling Stone article.

(It was amazing and disturbing how many of the "traditions" described in the book are mentioned in the Rolling Stone article, 50 years later...)

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Animal-House-Fraternity/dp/B0...

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

#130

Post by gte910h »

learc83 wrote: post #12
gte910h wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Atlanta Public schools are pretty horrible What do you mean? APS mostly gets issues with disparity of performance (aka, the children of the rich people far outperform the children of everyone else). Sure, there are bad ones. But don't live there: http://www.atlantapublicschools.us/site/default.aspx?PageTyp... This explains why you may think the schools are bad: http://midtown.patch.com/articles/grady-high-school-one…

I was mainly talking about things like the recent widespread systemic cheating. 44 out of 56 schools were cheating on the CRCT. Edit: by things like that, I mean an environment where that large a percentage of schools feel pressured to cheat. I'm aware that state and federal rules and standardized tests are responsible for some of the pressure, but none of the other school systems in the metro-atlanta area had such w…

It was shown in the governers report to be Barbra Hall and the principals doing the pressure. People who are quitting/being fired/etc right now.

http://www.ajc.com/news/volume-1-of-special-1000798.html

http://www.ajc.com/news/volume-2volume-2-of-special-1000571....

http://www.ajc.com/news/volume-3volume-3-conclusions-why-100...

It's actually a pretty interesting read, with testimony and specific allegations.

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