April 27, 2017

Are North American cities going past "Peak Millennial"?

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The New York Times is reporting that Millennials-those born between the early 1980’s and late 1990’s or early 2000’s-may have reached the “peak” of inflow into cities, and that outflow of mid-30’s couples to the suburbs has commenced. This may be the biggest outflow to the suburbs since the Great Recession of 2007.

“Dowell Myers, a professor of demography and urban planning at the University of Southern California, recently published a paper that noted American cities reached “peak millennial” in 2015. Over the next few years, he predicts, the growth in demand for urban living is likely to stall…Are large numbers of millennials really so enamored with city living that they will age and raise families inside the urban core, or will many of them, like earlier generations, eventually head to the suburbs in search of bigger homes and better school districts?”

With the two factors of people getting older and having  less tolerance for low paying jobs and small urban apartments there may be a trend back to the suburbs. Downtowns do have walkability and a high concentration of people under 25 years of age.

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Leave a Reply to Thomas BeyerCancel Reply

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  2. Indeed. The tiny condo is over-rated once the kids arrive. People want a yard and some more room.
    deleted as per editorial policy

    1. What % young people want kids? Fully half of the friends I grew up with never went that route. They mostly still live in the city.
      Even so, there have always been more kids than school capacity in the inner city as planning and provincial funding lags the reality-check that people with kids still like living in cities. Considering it is absolutely not in our culture to grow up in apartments we are witnessing a major cultural shift. A generation ago it was still an anomaly.

      1. Without kids, societies die.
        By definition, each female is “engineered” to have two or more kids, as a healthy society needs about 2.1 kids per female to survive without immigration. Only the US has that, btw. Feel free to read the book “America Alone” by Mark Steyn if you want. Demographics matter.

  3. This was predictable and many demographers have been calling it for years. Looking with a friend a two bed condos and many sellers were parents with a second kid on the way who were heading for the burbs.

  4. Every millennial I know lives in Vancouver and rents, with two exceptions, one for a condo owner in Kits and another for a couple with two infants who made the move to a fixer upper in Maple Ridge. The latter are the only exception, and their commute is not a good experience. Between child-rearing and the commute, they do not have a lot of energy, time and financial resources to affect necessary repairs to their house.
    The piece does not reflect everyone’s experience, and is in fact uniquely American.
    Larry Beasley recently co-wrote a book with a chapter on urbanizing the suburbs using transit. He joins Peter Calthorpe and others in that vein. I think this is relevant to this discussion along with supplying the Missing Middle, predominantly ground-oriented family housing using a fraction of the expensive land per unit compared to zoning for detached housing, and placing them in mixed use walkable neighbourhoods.

    1. The Maple Ridge type commuters are a big problem. They are in survival mode and probably never imagined how much time they would spend driving around. They probably don’t realize it now – it just becomes what needs to be done They have no time to understand the nuances of good urban planning and transit and they are apt to buy into the simplistic arguments of solving their survival problem with wider, faster roads.
      Even if they moved from a more walkable place, people tend to forget and adapt. But if they grew up out there they wouldn’t even have the luxury of an other experience from a distant memory.
      I lived in the ‘burbs for a few years. It was easy to start deluding myself that it wasn’t so bad. Only when I moved back to the city did I fully appreciate how much easier life is when one has options and everything is nearby.

      1. Choices is what we need. Options to live our lives as we see fit. Yours to yours, and I to mine. That is what a complex society in a modern metro-plex like Metrovan with 2M+ people from all over the world needs. Not some government telling us what living form is best suited. Let them figure it out. You love a short urban commute by bike, foot or transit, and others prefer a yard with trees, less noise, less people and a longer commute.
        There is no right or wrong here. Just options / choices !

        1. When the “choices” impose huge costs onto society, then you have the tyranny of the majority …. and a big, big problem.

  5. The cost of a SFR goes down hundreds of thousands of dollars for every 20 minutes or so of commute outward – Tri-Cities to Maple Ridge to Mission or Abbotsford. While I’d never make that decision – being an urbanite with no children – I certainly can see how people who do have a family or just want more “space” decide that way. Especially if the can sell a TH in Surrey and can buy a house in Mission. Maybe even can then afford to leave one parent at home, like in olden days. At least they hope so.
    My experience in Mission is that developers continue to opt for lower density forms, even when zoning is for something higher, simply because that’s where the market is.
    Reinventing the Canadian Dream is very, very tough.

      1. No one subsidizes urban mobility. It is buried in property taxes, gasoline taxes, lot levies, DCCs, PST and income taxes.
        If we all lived in one tall 10,000 story tall highrise (expandable ie higher as more peope arrive) we’d need less planners, less roads, less transit and thus, we ALL would pay less taxes !
        How does the ideal city look like .. as obviously there are a lot of options between the two extremes of one tall highrise and leafy neighborhoods with 400,000+ bungalows with big lawns (also sometime referred to as sprawl) ? Which city today anywheer in the world is closest to this ideal ? Whose ideal ?
        Why charge any taxes btw ? Why not have no government mandated healthcare, education, police or roads. All private. User pays for every need. Cross the road: $1. Go to the beach: $5. Hospital visit, on check-in $50. Per doctor $5/minute etc ??? This is a better society ?

        1. Subsidy: It is buried in property taxes, gasoline taxes, lot levies, DCCs, PST and income taxes.
          Thanks Thomas.
          You can argue a technicality that this isn’t aimed at a business venture. But really it is. It sells cars and all the accoutrements of motordom including sprawling real estate.

        2. Not so simple. Many condo developers are happy to sell to folks without cars.
          Taxation is by definition a subsidy as you tax one group more than they use: schools, healthcare, beach use, roads, transit, pools, police ..

        3. Instead of using surplus tax revenue to pay the mobility costs for those choosing to work & live long distance , These funds should be used for a tax credit as an incentive for people to live & work without excessive moblity

        4. @Bob: indeed, but the same can be argued for healthcare, education, policing, beach use ..
          Those with no car pay no gasoline taxes, no PST or GST on car purchase, lower parking garage fees/condo fees, .. that is not enough ??

        5. deleted as per editorial polcy
          Long commuters at least pay more in gasoline taxes.
          deleted as per editorial policy

        6. “Long commuters at least pay more in gasoline taxes”
          True, unless they fill up outside of Metro, or drive an electric vehicle. But even those who do pay full gasoline taxes don’t pay enough to compensate.
          It is like saying that more people are smoking or drinking excessively, but it is OK since we get the tax revenue.

        7. @ Thomas, you keep reiterating over and over about choices and frequently conflate healthcare and emergency services with other tax-supported services and infrastructure like roads. The problem is that for needing a doctor, a fire truck, police action or K12 education, they and other essential services are there for the common good, not for personal choice.

        1. There is a difference between beneficial mobility and excessive mobility. There never has been a civilization with excessive mobility to judge if it was successful or not… until ours.

  6. deleted as per editorial policy
    As cars and other vehicles become more efficient, transit vehicles that are not full will be viewed as horribly wasteful. Some will obviously wait for full loads. Inconveniences will cause even less usage. Door-to-door in private efficient and zero emission vehicles will be highly favoured by environmentalists and everyone else.

    1. A not full transit vehicle is wasteful. but a 20% full S O V is not wasteful????? Zero emissions in both examples

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