I could not find a generic thread about Millennials or about overall generational shifts in America, so here it is.

 

 

Cincyopolis[/member] is a great new blog, and I was lucky enough to be featured in the "Big Thinkers" series. A lot of the post focuses on the Millennial perspective on cities, transportation, and politics.

I am millennial, hear me roar.

I am millennial, hear me roar.

 

Has anyone run across analysis of under-30 adults who are not college-educated an working in professional jobs and might live in rural areas?  Are these people also considered "millennials", and if not, are they showing any cultural shifts that align with professionally employed urban millennials? 

A millennial is defined only by age, unlike a hipster or young professional.

I am millennial, hear me roar.

 

Has anyone run across analysis of under-30 adults who are not college-educated an working in professional jobs and might live in rural areas?  Are these people also considered "millennials", and if not, are they showing any cultural shifts that align with professionally employed urban millennials? 

 

Seems like they like the 4-wheelin', hunting and dirt bikes as much as always. As long as they've got enough cash. So the 'burbs are bleeding Millennials more than the rural areas are. But that's an anecdote rather than analysis.

Young Drive an Urban Rebound

Recent Trend Reverses Decades in Which Suburbs Grew Faster Than Cities

By ELIOT BROWN

Jan. 2, 2015 9:05 p.m. ET

 

America’s biggest cities have seen a resurgence as employers and residents show a growing preference to live and work in urban areas. Experts expect the trend to continue—and even spill over into midsize and small cities.

 

Growth in the office market offers a lens into where employers are expanding or shrinking. Since 2010, demand for office space has been rising faster in cities than in the suburbs, at least when measured by rent growth. Office rents sought by landlords in urban areas rose 18.7% in the past four years, based on end-of-2014 estimates, compared with just 3.3% in the suburbs, according to real-estate research firm CoStar Group Inc.

 

As U.S. job growth picks up steam, many experts expect cities to continue to punch above their weight, in part because companies in some of the fastest-growing industries, such as technology, are showing an urban bent. Uber Technologies Inc., Twitter Inc. and Airbnb, for example, are expanding in San Francisco, not in the nearby suburbs of Silicon Valley.

 

MORE:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/young-drive-an-urban-rebound-1420250736

Where Young College Graduates Are Choosing to Live

 

And as young people continue to spurn the suburbs for urban living, more of them are moving to the very heart of cities — even in economically troubled places like Buffalo and Cleveland. The number of college-educated people age 25 to 34 living within three miles of city centers has surged, up 37 percent since 2000, even as the total population of these neighborhoods has slightly shrunk. [...]

 

The economic effects reach beyond the work the young people do, according to Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “The New Geography of Jobs.” For every college graduate who takes a job in an innovation industry, he found, five additional jobs are eventually created in that city, such as for waiters, carpenters, doctors, architects and teachers.

Apartment boom hitting all major Midwest markets

December 19, 2014  |  Dan Rafter

 

Christy Lockridge, principal with the Chicago office of Prudential, has seen the trend: Today’s renters increasingly want to live in the center of urban areas. They want to live near public transportation. They want to be able to walk to restaurants and shops. They want to live largely without having to jump into a car each day.

 

She’s seen, too, the impact that this trend has had on urban areas across the Midwest. Developers are descending on cities from Omaha to Minneapolis with plans for high-end luxury apartment towers, projects that are bringing new excitement to these urban areas.

 

And it’s a trend that Lockridge doesn’t see ending any time soon.

 

MORE:

http://www.rejournals.com/2014/12/19/apartment-boom-hitting-all-major-midwest-markets/#sthash.GVHEcAFo.dpuf

I just came across this quote:

 

A startling number of young people… have begun to question one of the central tenets of American culture: ownership. It’s a change that has arrived thanks to a confluence of developments. Times are tough. … Simultaneously, rapidly evolving technologies are enabling a new kind of connectedness and sharing, just as more of us than ever before are moving to urban areas. And more and more of us are at last awakening to the terrifying idea that our quintessentially American drive to own and consume more is bringing about dramatically harmful climate change. As a result, many of us are starting to rethink what it means to own something.

 

This pretty much summarizes my feelings on why driving is down, homeownership is down, renting is up, cities are on the rise, etc. Some skeptics say "it's because the economy crashed" and think it'll all go back to "normal" at some point, but I think it's actually a permanent change caused by a lot of factors that hit at the same time. Older people that grew up around this "ownership" idea (and the "American Dream") will continue to think that way until they die. But for many younger people:

 

- their "American dream" never has been and never will be owning a home in the suburbs

- their identity does not revolve around what home they own or what car they drive

- they have a positive view of cities because they grew up in an era of urban revitalization, as opposed to their parents who grew up in an era where cities were in decline

- they are more concerned about environmental impact than their parents, which impacts their living and transportation decisions

 

Another tangential point is that as people become more connected online, I believe it is also making them more social rather than more reclusive. As jmecklenborg[/member] once put it, "Facebook has actually motivated people to get off their butts," because they see their friends out at cool restaurants, bars, brewery tap rooms, parks, etc. and they want to go to those places too. The result is that they actually want to live closer to these things rather than being isolated out in some suburb with a 45 minute drive to get downtown.

Well if you have a retirement account, you own stock, and everyone who can should also try to own at least one rental property.  Building wealth and long-term financial stability depends on creating sources of income outside your salary.  That means collecting rent rather than paying it, collecting dividends rather than being the labor that makes them for someone else, etc. 

Well if you have a retirement account, you own stock, and everyone who can should also try to own at least one rental property.  Building wealth and long-term financial stability depends on creating sources of income outside your salary.  That means collecting rent rather than paying it, collecting dividends rather than being the labor that makes them for someone else, etc. 

 

Capitalist swine!!!!

I just came across the term "Generation Jones" for the first time tonight. While the term "Baby Boomer" generally refers to people born between 1946 and 1964, "Generation Jones" refers to the younger Baby Boomers, born from 1954 on. The theory goes that they received a little bit less privilege than their slightly older brothers and sisters, because by the time they were ready to enter the workforce in the mid-1970's, the jobs were starting to dry up and they began to develop their desire to #maga.

All they saw was the government ruining everything with iron-handed, ill-advised laws that weren't slowly phased in by Nixon and Ford-era lawmakers. Now they hate government on all levels except local. It's the root of why we can't have gentle, sensible regulation since the people who grew up at that time lock up when a regulation is proposed.

Data for Washington DC show that domestic immigration has slowed to a trickle, the WaPo's reporter's word.  From about 7,000 a year since 2008, it slowed to 2,300 for the year ending June 30, 2016.  The popular (but disputed) theory around town is that younger Americans have been priced out of the city. City growth continues, however, because of births and international immigration. Some folks are actually concerned that we are running out of poor people.

 

Cleveland is some years away from facing this "problem", but it creeps up on you.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/influx-of-newcomers-in-dc-appears-to-be-slowing-down-census-bureau-says/2016/12/31/0958019c-ce9a-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html?utm_term=.a0740495dbbe

 

DC has the same problem as SF, can't build enough supply because towers aren't allowed.

What does running out of poor people mean? There are still a lot of high crime and impoverished areas throughout De Capital.

 

Or do you mean fewer areas to gentrify and thus displace? DC is a long way from being a San Francisco or Manhattan.

When I lived in D.C. during 2004, I could immediately tell that very few people between 27 and 44 lived there. College and graduate students were given big budgets to live there for short periods of time but once you had to live on say 25-40K a year you were done. Go back from where you came until you can make real money!

What does running out of poor people mean? There are still a lot of high crime and impoverished areas throughout De Capital.

 

Or do you mean fewer areas to gentrify and thus displace? DC is a long way from being a San Francisco or Manhattan.

 

A lot of parts of SE DC (the area where most low-income individuals live) aren't attractive to gentrifiers for being "too suburban". It reminded me of Linden or the less dense parts of Madisonville.

What does running out of poor people mean? There are still a lot of high crime and impoverished areas throughout De Capital.

 

Or do you mean fewer areas to gentrify and thus displace? DC is a long way from being a San Francisco or Manhattan.

 

West of the Anacostia River, DC is almost completely stable and gentrifying neighborhoods. Even the Trinidad area, probably as bad as it gets, is seeing renovations and new construction. The Northeast sector is looking very prosperous, the same goes for formerly sketchy parts of Northwest, east of Rock Creek Park. There IS some development in east of the Anacostia, but the pace is slower.

 

"Running out of poor people" simply means there are large areas of the city where the poor simply can't afford to live and where there is little subsidized housing. The social assistance agencies in those areas are loathe to relocate where their business lies, so they want new assistance programs to import a clientele. 

^ Well, practically it means that there's not enough people nearby to do low-paying jobs that are necessary for the general functioning of the community.  Without meaningful transit or affordable housing nearby, janitors, baristas, housekeepers, waiters and waitresses, bar tenders, cashiers, dry cleaners, security guards, and the like can't get to the jobs in those high-income neighborhoods without a car and/or a long commute.  It becomes a situation where the job is a means only to fund the car needed to get to the job, a rather vicious circle for someone of modest means.  Wages in the area have to go up to counteract that, but it only makes the neighborhood even more exclusive as the coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and other stores get more expensive to cover the higher wages, and it risks stalling business growth and all sorts of other factors.  Point being, when neighborhoods are segregated/concentrated by income, economic efficiency declines because of all the additional travel that's necessary.   

So there is a big bubble of 26-year-olds in America right now:

 

 

This graph shows why I thought it was so dumb for colleges to go on big construction sprees about 5 years ago. They were doing it to respond to the influx of students that was occurring at that time, but looking at demographics, it looks like enrollment will be flat or declining for the next decade or so... unless they can rely on attracting enough international students to fill the void.

^Good news for us born in the 70s...there will be surplus units in retirement homes when it's time to wind things down. 

^Good news for us born in the 70s...there will be surplus units in retirement homes when it's time to wind things down. 

 

Also the stock market will be high with all the current 20 year old's plowing money into there 401k's hoping to retire.

What does running out of poor people mean? There are still a lot of high crime and impoverished areas throughout De Capital.

 

Or do you mean fewer areas to gentrify and thus displace? DC is a long way from being a San Francisco or Manhattan.

 

Yeah, DC is still dirt cheap compared to SF or Manhattan. A better price comparison is Oakland, but even then, you get magnitudes more bang for your buck in DC than in Oakland. Oakland is a sleepy hipster suburb of San Francisco with very limited amenities. DC is a global power city with tons of amenities. It's a far nicer and more urban place. Bang for buck, DC is still a good deal. It's not Chicago cheap, but it's cheap compared to the Bay or NYC.

 

*The real problem is how many good jobs are concentrated on the coasts. The global power cities in America have the bulk of good jobs, but their housing is overpriced. If we could get some of these jobs to move to the Rust Belt, it would solve all sorts of issues.

 

And if you exclude NYC/SF/DC/Philly/Boston/Seattle, the Rust Belt cities are every bit as urban as the saltwater cities. In some cases, they're more urban. For example, Cleveland and Cincinnati are more urban than Oakland. Pittsburgh is more urban than LA. Milwaukee is more urban than Portland. Toledo is more urban than Sacramento and San Jose. Columbus is more urban than Denver and Salt Lake City.

 

Every single damn city in the Rust Belt is more urban than Austin!

 

Kids are still moving to the hot millennial cities for jobs, not urban amenities. Recent college grads are now priced out of superstar coastal cities like SF/NYC/Boston/DC/Seattle unless they work in finance, tech, healthcare, or the public sector.

 

I would bank on Gen Z showing different migration patterns than Gen Y. Gen Y kept flooding the most expensive cities. I think Gen Z will rediscover the Rust Belt cities. Hell, they're already opening businesses in them! You can see this in Toledo at places like Rustbelt Coffee.

 

Rust Belt cities should abandon marketing to Gen Y/millennials and focus entirely on Gen Z. People in high school and undergrad right now are the market to target. These kids don't want artisanal, aging millennial hipster crap done a million times over like in Portland and Oakland! Austin is doomed to be tragically uncool too...

 

I'm banking on Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Milwaukee being America's hot cities with Gen Z. St. Louis might be too. Basically, keep a close eye on the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley cities. Remote work is about to explode and kids in school today will have more freedom on where they work. As long as they have access to a major airport for important meetings and events, I think a lot of them will choose to live in cities with cheap historic housing and good urban amenities from the glory days. The Rust Belt cities fit this model. You can get the housing of SF or NYC for 1/10th the price (or 1/5th the price of Seattle/DC/Boston). The housing price gap has gotten too big to justify...

Those cities are still going to need better rail transit then they have to retain those people. Gen Z has even more nerds than the millennials so cars are still a burden and boring. They might not worry about bars as much since nerds aren't big on the drinking and drugs. They also aren't concerned with stores other than nerd stores since clothing is so unimportant in the nerd realm. They are immune to hipster boutiques.

Yeah I just read an article the other day about how a lot of people in their early 20s aren't even attempting to get "good" jobs anymore. They work for a couple of months to save up money and then use it to buy the latest video games. Then they quit their job and stay home and play video games for a couple of months. And then repeat.

I haven't been to Austin so I'll refrain from commenting but Nashville and Charlotte are both hideously auto-centric places without any Southern charm.  They aren't Savannah or Charleston or the Garden District.  Those two along with Denver are throwing up cheap slot houses and yuppie boxes by the thousands.  People aren't going to like those houses in 15 years.  In 2030 they're going to look like how Cincinnati's circa-2003 City West development looks now. 

Yeah I just read an article the other day about how a lot of people in their early 20s aren't even attempting to get "good" jobs anymore. They work for a couple of months to save up money and then use it to buy the latest video games. Then they quit their job and stay home and play video games for a couple of months. And then repeat.

 

Oh for sure. If you are completely fulfilled by extra cheap nerd hobbies there is zero motivation to make a lot of money. Most nerd girls don't give a crap about how much money a guy makes so that removes the male motivation to make money as well.

 

I can't get fast food in Lancaster (where my store is located) without being forced to talk about product by the restaurant's employees.

I am millennial, hear me roar.

 

Has anyone run across analysis of under-30 adults who are not college-educated an working in professional jobs and might live in rural areas?  Are these people also considered "millennials", and if not, are they showing any cultural shifts that align with professionally employed urban millennials? 

 

Seems like they like the 4-wheelin', hunting and dirt bikes as much as always. As long as they've got enough cash. So the 'burbs are bleeding Millennials more than the rural areas are. But that's an anecdote rather than analysis.

 

It's been a few years since I wrote this. This isn't the case. Millennial are abandoning rural areas for cities AND suburbs. They are leaving the farm at a rate that makes people think they are leaving cities to fill 'burbs. The reason I thought rural areas still have lots of 20s is that I had started working in Lancaster. Lancaster doesn't lose its 20s like other small cities and rural areas do.

I'm still seeing plenty of bro salesman coming up.  They're just like the 55 year-old guys you see who make $280k, don't read, and are obsessed with area high school sports.  But I think most of them are a lot less interested in golf.  I don't know what they're doing in instead, but they're only golfing 5 times per year at most, not 25. 

Sounds like Cincinnati. Wealthy parents in sports-dominated cities such as Cincinnati actively steer their kids away from nerd stuff.

I do think that Cincinnati and the rest of Ohio's cities could help their long-term sustainability by incentivizing the construction of 4-bedroom houses in their inner-city and first-ring suburbs.  This is necessary if they want families living in these areas and not just empty-nesters, young adult singles, and young couples with just one child. 

 

Cincinnati's City West development has 3 and 4-bedroom houses in it.  It's the only affordable option for a family that wants to live near Downtown.  The new 4-bedroom houses in Over-the-Rhine are all $600k-$1 million and pay between $1,000-2,000/mo in property tax.  The construction of new larger homes could be incentivized by deleting the fourth bedroom from property tax assessments if owner-occupants have at least one child living in the home. 

 

 

Family sizes are shrinking though.  Even in Gen X, three kids is considered a lot and many are entering midlife with zero, meaning there might eventually be one child maybe.  This doesn't mean cities should be inhospitable to kids, but houses with tons of bedrooms may not be what's needed.  The bigger issue with house size seems to be bathrooms and common areas.  Everyone wants huge living rooms and kitchens compared to the old days, and some want workspaces too. 

That's true, but this is still Ohio where those trends aren't as strong. People here on average marry and have kids much earlier than on the Coasts.

I do think that Cincinnati and the rest of Ohio's cities could help their long-term sustainability by incentivizing the construction of 4-bedroom houses in their inner-city and first-ring suburbs.  This is necessary if they want families living in these areas and not just empty-nesters, young adult singles, and young couples with just one child. 

 

Cincinnati's City West development has 3 and 4-bedroom houses in it.  It's the only affordable option for a family that wants to live near Downtown.  The new 4-bedroom houses in Over-the-Rhine are all $600k-$1 million and pay between $1,000-2,000/mo in property tax.  The construction of new larger homes could be incentivized by deleting the fourth bedroom from property tax assessments if owner-occupants have at least one child living in the home. 

 

The question is how you economically do that. Land prices in the inner ring are still fairly high compared to an undeveloped tract of farmland in Mt. Orab or Harrison. Add to that demolition and any environmental remediation, and the costs can go up significantly. Tax abatements help, but not always the answer.

Vacant lots are still very, very cheap in any number of Cincinnati neighborhoods.  $10,000 or less.  Right now there are two $10k lots listed in Avondale and two in Evendale.  Any sort of "development", such as the ugly thing that went in in Northside between Virginia and Colerain, are $30k.  There is a $9,000 city lot listed on Jerome St. just three blocks away. 

 

I really think Avondale is going to come roaring back on its own.  The WHRF has everyone distracted but the big money is probably sneaking around Avondale as we speak ready to throw up yuppie box after yuppie box in the 2020s. 

Fertility rates by state (2015):

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

 

Utah is highest at 2.3 children per woman; Rhode island is lowest at 1.58. Ohio ranks 22 of 50, or right in the middle, at 1.87. The rate is dropping across the board. Replacement rate is considered to be 2.1, so Ohio is below natural replacement. Without immigration, the low birth rate is going to make Ohio lose population eventually, when the Baby Boomers die off. As of the 2010 Census, Ohio was projected to peak in population in 2018 and then decline.

 

I keep hearing people say thing like "I'd like to have another child, but it's just too expensive."

 

In the west side suburbs of Cincinnati, Northwest is closing 2 elementary schools, and the archdiocese is closing Mercy high school. Enrollment is down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^Wow is it dropping fast. Generation No Spend doesn't want the financial burden. I bet the 3Cs especially are pushing it down in Ohio. This is interesting -- I was way wrong and that never happens.

That's interesting. The impression I get from most people I know my age isn't "I'm not having a child because it's too expensive," it's just, "I don't want to have kids." With some of the couples I know, one is either a yes or a maybe but the other is a "hell no". On the other hand, a lot more of the people I knew from high school who never moved away from their hometown ended up having kids at a much younger age. The people I know from college and post-college aren't.

The relevant statistic with regards for the need for 4-bedroom houses in city neighborhoods is to eliminate people with zero kids from the equation.  They're not in the market for such homes or even houses.  Many people with two children buy 4-bedroom homes under the assumption that they will have at least one more and because they want extra space for an office or guests. 

 

There are still a fair number of larger young families out there.  One of my best friends has five kids and I have several more friends with four. 

 

 

 

 

 

So there is a big bubble of 26-year-olds in America right now:

 

 

This graph shows why I thought it was so dumb for colleges to go on big construction sprees about 5 years ago. They were doing it to respond to the influx of students that was occurring at that time, but looking at demographics, it looks like enrollment will be flat or declining for the next decade or so... unless they can rely on attracting enough international students to fill the void.

 

That's like how colleges built very little in the '80s and early '90s since they had excess capacity left over from from the '60s and '70s with everyone going to college to avoid Vietnam. They didn't have to start building again until the late '90s when parents decreed that their kids were all going to college lest they suffer the embarrassment of having a child that went into the trades and made money before age 30.

^In that graph there are progressively fewer and fewer white people as you move toward the left.  But the white people at the right hold almost all of the country's wealth.  So those trilliions will be passed down to an ever-decreasing number of white descendants.  After 2050, when whites comprise less than half of the country's population, and even through 2100 when they might dip below 40%, they will still own most property, most businesses, and still have 1 million + people who never work and live leisurely lifestyles.   

^ these are the same people convincing poor white people to get rid of estate taxes and taxes for ultra wealthy. 

^In that graph there are progressively fewer and fewer white people as you move toward the left.  But the white people at the right hold almost all of the country's wealth.  So those trilliions will be passed down to an ever-decreasing number of white descendants.  After 2050, when whites comprise less than half of the country's population, and even through 2100 when they might dip below 40%, they will still own most property, most businesses, and still have 1 million + people who never work and live leisurely lifestyles.   

 

What percentage of that wealth will be given to the Catholic church?

^In that graph there are progressively fewer and fewer white people as you move toward the left.  But the white people at the right hold almost all of the country's wealth.  So those trilliions will be passed down to an ever-decreasing number of white descendants.  After 2050, when whites comprise less than half of the country's population, and even through 2100 when they might dip below 40%, they will still own most property, most businesses, and still have 1 million + people who never work and live leisurely lifestyles.   

 

What percentage of that wealth will be given to the Catholic church?

 

Well for those who do, it's often a huge percentage of their estate. 

 

The Catholic Church plays a much longer game than do the Southern Baptists and other groups where anyone can start a church and said church often has a 30-50 year lifespan at most.  The term tithe doesn't even exist in the Catholic vernacular, with there being no formal guide for how much one should throw in the basket each week at church.  Meanwhile, evangelicals often throw 10% of their current earnings into the basket of whatever church they attend each month or week.  If a preacher ticks them off, they take their weekly tithe elsewhere.  So the preacher is under a lot of pressure to keep them entertained.  Meanwhile, a Catholic parish is minimally affected by a mild downturn in church attendance since the real money is in the huge donations from estates.  I heard through the grapevine that the $16 million payout by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for the priest abuse scandal back in 2004 came from a single unexpected $16 million gift from a woman who died in 2003 or 2004. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Catholic Church plays a much longer game than do the Southern Baptists and other groups where anyone can start a church and said church often has a 30-50 year lifespan at most.  The term tithe doesn't even exist in the Catholic vernacular, with there being no formal guide for how much one should throw in the basket each week at church.  Meanwhile, evangelicals often throw 10% of their current earnings into the basket of whatever church they attend each month or week.  If a preacher ticks them off, they take their weekly tithe elsewhere.  So the preacher is under a lot of pressure to keep them entertained. 

 

 

 

I had a conversation with a traveler recently while out to lunch with my mother along 23 in Pickaway County and thought of this post. A lady from North Carolina probably a few years younger than me struck up a conversation with us. After a short time she determined that Mom likes church. They start talking religion (awesome) and the lady commented that she didn't see any churches on US-52 and US-23 once she got into Ohio. She was worried... "You don't have any churches!" I'm thinking, "We have tons, lady." Mom goes "Well, you've been on the highway. The churches are in town."

 

Of course all the churches are right next to the highway in the South. They're all new.

I didn't hear the whole story this morning but NPR had a guest talking about how there is some effort in trying to combine black and white congregations in the South.  It talked about merging old "declining" congregations with younger, "growing" ones.  It truly would be a sea change in the south if blacks and whites started merging their churches.  Think back to the opening scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin, where the writer so amazingly describes the choral singing and old-tyme religion that centered in the cabin.  The same religion was always physically separated in the South along racial lines. 

 

There are a fair number of black Catholics in the small French-settled part of the United States.  It's just one more way in which New Orleans has a culture distinct from the rest of the United States.  There are a large number of Mexicans joining formerly all-white Catholic churches elsewhere, but in Ohio, the Catholics remain an incredibly homogenous group 150 years after moving here from Europe.   

 

 

 

As a millennial, I feel extraordinarily powerful. Apparently, my peers and I have the ability to kill off entire industries.

Napkins? WTF. Was the napkin industry that fragile? Sorry we aren't...messier? What am I doing wrong?!