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Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

census.gov

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Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#121

Post by dibt »

atlgator wrote: post #49

If I had become a doctor or a hotelier I definitely would've stayed in my home town. I miss it greatly, but there's zero tech presence and remote jobs seem to be drying up.

> If I had become a doctor or a hotelier I definitely would've stayed in my home town.

According to the study, you would likely have not stayed:

"By linking young adults to their parents, we can see that this migration is primarily driven by individuals who grew up in affluent families."

A low-income family is less likely to send their kid to school to be a doctor or hotelier.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#122

Post by karamanolev »

Alupis wrote: post #100
ethanbond wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least American suburbs are ultra car-dependent meaning you're not walking anywhere (literally physically degrading to both you and the environment) and you do not have chance social encounters at nearly the frequency of any walking city (socially degrading). This is not to say there aren't real benefits to life in the burbs and serious disadvantages to city life, but it's fairly evident by now that American suburb…

Perhaps for you city dweller's, but for the rest of us, we really like our suburbs. Not being able to walk everywhere is literally not even a factor I look for when moving to a new area. I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter.

I see why you like the suburbs. But it's essentially a hoax, it's like living above your means on a bunch of credit cards - at least for most people (not all).

Affordability for a lot of suburbs is when you allow for degrading infrastructure and moving more and more towards bankruptcy of cities. Budget analysis for a lot of suburbs show very troubling trends. In essence, living in a properly maintained suburbia is not affordable. Too much street, pipe and wire per capita.

Cleanliness - it's only in appearance. The dirtiness is externalized to the environment by means of CO2 and other emissions due to personal transport. A lot of concrete and asphalt being poured require massive excavations and destruction of nature elsewhere. More than cities.

Quiet is also externalized - cars are extremely noisy and suburbia basically requires a lot of 4000 lbs metal hunks with mostly a single person inside.

Privacy is there, but it costs quite a lot in total societal costs.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#123

Post by the_gastropod »

Alupis wrote: post #100
ethanbond wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least American suburbs are ultra car-dependent meaning you're not walking anywhere (literally physically degrading to both you and the environment) and you do not have chance social encounters at nearly the frequency of any walking city (socially degrading). This is not to say there aren't real benefits to life in the burbs and serious disadvantages to city life, but it's fairly evident by now that American suburb…

Perhaps for you city dweller's, but for the rest of us, we really like our suburbs. Not being able to walk everywhere is literally not even a factor I look for when moving to a new area. I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability. I have yet to see the metropolis that checks all of those boxes, or any of them for the matter.

> I want quiet, safety, cleanliness, privacy and affordability.

Most of these are pretty cliche. New York City is one of the safest cities in the country per capita. But as with “cleanliness” is usually trotted out in a dog whistly kind of way that really is about something else. And affordability: yep. You’ve got that for a couple reasons: 1. People LIKE living in cities. Good old supply/demand. 2. As this thread is discussing, suburbs are massively subsidized to the detriment of the cities they neighbor.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#124

Post by layman51 »

I think I count as one of the six. Since I live in an expensive and affluent area, I think I am one of the few people who lives close to where they grew up. In my opinion, moving away gives you more opportunity and life experiences. It is a very US American and “immigrant” thing to do. Personally, I haven’t taken that route because I have no idea what my living situation would be like and I think it would probably be worse for me in terms of psychology and social life.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#125

Post by chrisco255 »

Yhippa wrote: post #99

I moved from where I grew up. The biggest advantage is access to better career paths and potential with my career. If I get laid off, there are more diverse work options, unlike where I grew up. The flip side is that being able to have family help out easily when our kid is sick. Also I have friends who stayed back home (the ratio matching this article title pretty closely) and they have barbecues together, can hang…

I feel like with remote work, it's possible to have your cake and eat it, too. Depends on your career, but at least in software, it no longer feels like you have to move to a tech hub to make it, for example.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#126

Post by emodendroket »

ckosidows wrote: post #56
emodendroket wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ever feeling any kind of culture shock is itself limiting.

This is a privileged opinion, no? Not everyone has the resources or means to leave the place they live.

Ok so that's another way poverty harms them. Is it less "privileged" to pretend that is not the case and someone who has no ability to leave their hometown has no disadvantage?

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#127

Post by Kye »

aaronax wrote: post #93
saraton1n wrote: post #34

I was a military child, and so I moved around my whole life. My best friend has lived their whole life in the city I live in now. Sometimes I get a little jealous because I don't have any heart-connection to any place. Most of the friends I regularly talk to are people I've met within the last 5 years, and I still don't have any still-standing friendships from the time before my dad retired. But also, I cannot imagin…

What are the concrete benefits of such a well-rounded background?

Not the person you asked, but it's harder to have harmful conceits about people and places when you've been to or met people from them. I've noticed that as the internet has grown, the rhetoric has moved from "lol, Americans" to "why do you vote for these people" to a lot more empathy for how our system is designed to inhibit change (good and bad).

I've changed my understanding of other countries the same way. Mostly from meeting people online, but sometimes in person. Just something as simple as someone asking "what is ketchup?" in line at an elevator at a convention can expand the mind. How do you describe ketchup? Everyone knows ketchup! It made me wonder what else was normal and obvious to me that isn't to someone who's never experienced it.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#128

Post by siquick »

Yhippa wrote: post #99

I moved from where I grew up. The biggest advantage is access to better career paths and potential with my career. If I get laid off, there are more diverse work options, unlike where I grew up. The flip side is that being able to have family help out easily when our kid is sick. Also I have friends who stayed back home (the ratio matching this article title pretty closely) and they have barbecues together, can hang…

Depends on your definition of success?

I moved to the other side of the world from where I grew up in my early 30s, and I grew up at the other end of the country from where I was born and lived my early years.

I have a great group of mates I met in my early twenties and still speak with daily on WhatsApp.

As you say they meet up regularly, know each others families well, and they have not left their home area and have been friends since primary school.

They’re all jealous that I have lived an “adventurous and exciting” life and I’m jealous that they have amazingly solid roots.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#129

Post by emodendroket »

kcb wrote: post #75
emodendroket wrote: post #10

When I was growing up I always thought this was kind of a sign of, like, giving up, so I'm surprised the numbers are so high. I guess not everyone was thinking the same way.

Most Americans live in and around big cities. Ive lived my entire life in commuting distance to Manhattan along with 10s of millions others. There was never any notion from myself or my peers of having to move to "make it". The end goal was always to find a job and get on a bus or train every morning.

So did I (well if you can tolerate a long commute but many people did it). It's not about chasing opportunities that don't exist, necessarily, but striking out on your own and leaving the familiar.

Re: Nearly six in 10 US young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up

#130

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

I don't think many commenters in this thread realize the minuscule size of a human and how the things which most impact our happiness are located in our close proximity and surroundings. It's almost like a physical law , the weight that something has on our happiness diminishes exponentially with the distance from ourselves. The importance of the setup is constantly underappreciated.

Each and everyone of us has 150 people in their circle of acquaintances . And 90% of our happiness depends on the quality of our relationship with the top 10 people in such list.

Similarly with the external enviornment. 90% of our happiness depends on the conditions of the external enviornment in a radius of 300 yds.

It's very easy to be blinded by the lights of NYC or Hollywood, but those megalopolis are incredibly big and again humans are so small.

A good setup in Albuquerque or Salt Lake City beats a mediocre setup in NYC or LA every day of the week.

Sure the Empire State Building is nice to look at,but it gets old fast, especially while you see it in passing while on your way to be screamed at by your boss at your second job that you had to take because you can't make the rent.

Given how small humans are, the ideal setup can be everywhere except for maybe Somalia or Congo. But even then if you are the undisputed king of Somalia, that's much better than being an Investment Banker in NYC. Despite the fact that a block in NYC generates more GDP than the entire country of Somalia,the claim of the king on such small GDP is almost total, whereas an investment banker has zero claim on the GDP being produced in a block in NYC, he has zero claim on anything period.

I think it was Julius Caesar who said: "I would rather be first in a little village than second in Rome".

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