There is always a lag time for the marketplace to respond to a dramatic shift in personal preferences, technologies and societal values of a demographic -- particularly the largest demographic group in American history. What I want to buy and do and what I am able buy and do are two very different things. It takes the free market a long time to catch up, and the public sector even longer. And since transportation infrastructure is almost exclusively owned and financed by the public sector, this sector is going to take a long time to realize it is still building infrastructure that is no longer needed or wanted.

 

Indeed true. Government's government and doesn't get to do the rifle-quick moves that young individuals can, the sportscar like moves of a small business, the semi truck turns of a large company. Government (especially in the designed for gridlock U.S. system) gets to move about like a house. And if you've got a ton of individuals still dressing like Korn, well look how slow those other things can be.

 

The lack of immediate appearance of more rail and walkability, especially in an interior state with an anti-rail government and a good-old-boy system for highway building can make it seem like there's less demand than there really is.

BTW, there are many Republicans with some or all of those views, ClevelandOhio. In fact, many advances in passenger rail development in Ohio and nationally have occurred at the hands of Republicans. Major rail expansions are occurring in states with GOP governors (Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and yes, even in Florida and Wisconsin (see AAO's website). In Ohio, it was the late ORDC Director Jim Seney and Gov. Bob Taft (both GOP) who led the development of the Ohio Hub system. And it was President George Bush who signed into law the Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act of 2008 -- this nation's first multi-year capital improvement program for passenger rail. Even on the issue of Complete Streets, GOPers are very involved, including Painesville Congressman Dave Joyce (http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/painesville-congressman-dave-joyce-co-sponsors-bipartisan-complete-streets-bill).

BTW, there are many Republicans with some or all of those views, ClevelandOhio. In fact, many advances in passenger rail development in Ohio and nationally have occurred at the hands of Republicans. Major rail expansions are occurring in states with GOP governors (Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia and yes, even in Florida and Wisconsin (see AAO's website). In Ohio, it was the late ORDC Director Jim Seney and Gov. Bob Taft (both GOP) who led the development of the Ohio Hub system. And it was President George Bush who signed into law the Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act of 2008 -- this nation's first multi-year capital improvement program for passenger rail. Even on the issue of Complete Streets, GOPers are very involved, including Painesville Congressman Dave Joyce (http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/painesville-congressman-dave-joyce-co-sponsors-bipartisan-complete-streets-bill).

 

Thanks for the info!

So how many are leaving Greater Cleveland in particular and Ohio in general for cities where they can live low-mileage lifestyles?

 

From the people I know, the number who left Cincinnati for NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, etc., is enormous. And many of the people who stayed who grew up in the suburbs moved to the city. This is all anecdotal, but the numbers reinforce what I'm seeing on the ground. KJP is right that you can't just look at Ohio cities; you have to look at Ohio's Millenials and where they're going.

 

Another anecdote: as my age cohort is now above the 30 line, I've noticed many of the Ohioans I know who moved to these places (I'm mostly aware of the ones in NYC) have cars now. They live in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, like they used to, and live car-lite instead of car-free. They certainly don't drive less because they are too poor. They clearly prefer the lifestyle. I wonder if the under-30 set will forgo the cars totally, or if that trend will stick (assuming my anecdotal observations here align with a trend).

Most likely car-lite. It's a good compromise between no car and the car as a master.

So I decided to look at every census block within Downtown Cleveland. South of Lake Erie, East of the Cuyahoga River, North and West of I90. This number includes everyone but prisoners. So homeless shelters and public housing/section 8 are included. I only mention this because they are not the typical group we speak of as moving back to the city as part of a trend.

 

Here are the numbers.

 

Total Population - 7,443

Population Under 30 - 3,801

 

Another interesting thing to note is that child population drops dramatically as age increases.

 

Children Under 5 years old - 178

Children 15 to 17 years old - 25

 

Once adults turn 30 the population declines fast as well.

 

Population 25 to 29 years old - 2,045

Population 35- 39 years old - 408

That's how it is now. Are you sure that the trend of the past 50 years will hold for another 10, or the trend of the previous 3000?

You can claim it is because the young people want to live in a carless society. That it plain bunk. Take the downtown living expansion of any city in the US, including Cincinnati, and the volume is still a small percentage, in fact not even significant.

 

Most young people don't want to live in a "carless society". But more people want to live in places where they can walk, bike, or take transit to more places. Some people may choose to live without a car in these places; others will still own cars but use them less.

 

I live in OTR, and I walk to my office, walk to bars and restaurants, and occasionally walk to get groceries. I drive to the gym, to the airport, and for larger grocery shopping trips.

 

I grew up in Clermont County, in an area that was barely suburban, approaching rural. You could not go anywhere or do anything without driving. Many of my friends from my hometown are now living in more urban neighborhoods; for example a few of them moved to Norwood. They still use their cars a lot, but probably drive about 1/2 or 1/3 as much to accomplish the same things (going to a movie, going shopping, etc.).

 

That's why this whole notion of a "War On Cars" is insane. There is no war on cars. Most people still want cars. But most people also want to be able to do certain things without driving at all, or at least without driving very far.

You can claim it is because the young people want to live in a carless society. That it plain bunk. Take the downtown living expansion of any city in the US, including Cincinnati, and the volume is still a small percentage, in fact not even significant.

 

Most young people don't want to live in a "carless society". But more people want to live in places where they can walk, bike, or take transit to more places. Some people may choose to live without a car in these places; others will still own cars but use them less.

 

I live in OTR, and I walk to my office, walk to bars and restaurants, and occasionally walk to get groceries. I drive to the gym, to the airport, and for larger grocery shopping trips.

 

I grew up in Clermont County, in an area that was barely suburban, approaching rural. You could not go anywhere or do anything without driving. Many of my friends from my hometown are now living in more urban neighborhoods; for example a few of them moved to Norwood. They still use their cars a lot, but probably drive about 1/2 or 1/3 as much to accomplish the same things (going to a movie, going shopping, etc.).

 

That's why this whole notion of a "War On Cars" is insane. There is no war on cars. Most people still want cars. But most people also want to be able to do certain things without driving at all, or at least without driving very far.

 

I lived in downtown Cleveland in my 20's.  I owned a car for the same reasons groceries, airport, etc, but never had to drive to bar hop party, which is what we do when we're in our 20's.  I think a lot of the urban hipsters are in these hoods for the same reason.  Easy access to bars and restaurants, without having to run the gauntlet of suburban cops on their way home. 

 

Also if you think about it they have also lived through a couple of serious oil spikes--so the price of gas is always on their minds, and quite high if adjusted for inflation.  I remember putting $5 in my Ford Escort and driving all week.  These days that wouldn't last you the day.

>These days that wouldn't last you the day.

 

Yeah, I used to spend $5 on gas per week when it was 85 cents per gallon.  Could drive to the east coast for like $14. 

 

So I decided to look at every census block within Downtown Cleveland. South of Lake Erie, East of the Cuyahoga River, North and West of I90. This number includes everyone but prisoners. So homeless shelters and public housing/section 8 are included. I only mention this because they are not the typical group we speak of as moving back to the city as part of a trend.

 

Here are the numbers.

 

Total Population - 7,443

Population Under 30 - 3,801

 

Another interesting thing to note is that child population drops dramatically as age increases.

 

Children Under 5 years old - 178

Children 15 to 17 years old - 25

 

Once adults turn 30 the population declines fast as well.

 

Population 25 to 29 years old - 2,045

Population 35- 39 years old - 408

That's how it is now. Are you sure that the trend of the past 50 years will hold for another 10, or the trend of the previous 3000?

 

If you look at the reasons behind it, primarily the schools and the idea of breathing space for the kids...that hasn't changed.  So are you sure it won't?....

^ Enough people were raised as kids with a lot of "breathing space" and they realize now just how lousy it was and don't want to subject their own kids to it.  Schools are a difficult problem yes, but suburban schools aren't better because they're suburban, they're better because that's where the good students and parents just happen to be at the moment.  The notion of safety is another reason people tend to move out to the suburbs, but did you know that once kids get to be out of the toddler stage, car crashes are the number one cause of child deaths in the US?  With schools and activities already spread out to the extent that parents have to be chauffeurs even if they live in the city, more and more people are realizing it's just not worth all the trouble, even though few appreciate the dangers.

 

VMT can't keep going up forever (without a completely new technology such as Jetsons-like hovercars or transporters ala Star Trek) because simply extrapolating past trends leads to the absurd conclusion that people will eventually spend 100% of their time driving.

 

http://xkcd.com/1007/

 

Throughout human history, there's been a consistent pattern whereby people want to be, on average, no more than 30 minutes from work.  This has remained true from walking through trains and streetcars to the automobile era of today.  The only difference is the distances covered, not the average amount of time people spend.  Many of our cities have sprawled out to such an extent that this limit has been reached for most people.  Traffic chokes off growth and people get fed up with it, so they find alternatives, change their lifestyle as much as they can, or move somewhere else. 

 

The suburban development pattern is a historical anomaly, an experiment less than 100 years old and supported only by a stable system of oil-based energy and transportation, well-maintained government subsidized roads and highways, and a population and financing system wealthy enough to afford it.  These are all very fragile and tenuous things, and the faltering of any particular one can be devastating to the whole "happy motoring" concept and the notion of the suburban dream.

Most likely car-lite. It's a good compromise between no car and the car as a master.

 

If "car-lite" means having access to a car-sharing system (or a city that isn't trying use its government powers to squelch Uber ...), then perhaps.  But if your attempted "compromise" means actually owning a car at all, and therefore having to deal with the car payment and insurance (which are fixed even if your maintenance and fuel expenses are very low due to low usage), then the "compromise" isn't exactly a real meet-in-the-middle outcome.

Car-lite means owning one car instead of two (say for a couple) or two instead of three (for a family with one or more driving age kids).  Growing up in a family of four we only ever had two cars, even though we lived in the suburbs, because my dad took the train to work every day.  So when I was old enough to drive I just used Dad's car, and after leaving for college my younger brother used it.  That $100/month train ticket cost a LOT less than a third car, even an old beater. 

If "car-lite" means having access to a car-sharing system (or a city that isn't trying use its government powers to squelch Uber ...), then perhaps.  But if your attempted "compromise" means actually owning a car at all, and therefore having to deal with the car payment and insurance (which are fixed even if your maintenance and fuel expenses are very low due to low usage), then the "compromise" isn't exactly a real meet-in-the-middle outcome.

 

What if you own an older car that's already paid off? You're still paying insurance, but don't have a car payment and you're not spending much on gas (if you don't drive much). That's my situation, and I would consider it "car-lite".

If "car-lite" means having access to a car-sharing system (or a city that isn't trying use its government powers to squelch Uber ...), then perhaps.  But if your attempted "compromise" means actually owning a car at all, and therefore having to deal with the car payment and insurance (which are fixed even if your maintenance and fuel expenses are very low due to low usage), then the "compromise" isn't exactly a real meet-in-the-middle outcome.

 

For our family car-lite means only having one car payment and not two (although none now since the car is paid off).  It also means a deep discount in insurance rates since we do not use the car for commuting.  It may not be well known, but insurance companies do give steep discounts if you certify you do not use a car for commuting purposes.  It also means we don't need to worry about two car spaces for parking purposes.  Having to drive only occasionally means wear and tear on our only car means we'll have this car for many more years than the average family.  Filling up the gas tank every couple of weeks or so is hardly a bank breaking event.  To us it is quite comical to hear the media as well as random people complain about the slightest daily price change in a gallon of gas.

 

It seems like the car-lite lifestyle is rarely spoken about and I'm perplexed as to why.  The conversation seems polarized between people touting the freedom of driving everywhere with their multiple cars and a completely car-less existence.  What's so bad about having all the benefits of being able to drive somewhere if need be, but also having drastically decreased costs of having just a single car that only leaves the garage a couple of times a week?

There is a now-banned poster who used to insist that cars were a fixed cost. That's the kind of belief system that people who don't understand money, energy and automobiles have.

 

You could have Warren Buffet, Stephen Hawking and Dale Earnhardt all three explaining how it really works to some people and they would still believe some of the lies brought forth from people like Randall O'Toole.

 

Another article on this topic; seems to be a meme for the moment.

 

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/5-reasons-young-people-are-not-buying-cars-or-getting-their-drivers-license/

 

When my niece turned 16 in 2008, family members braced for the inevitable: successful completion of her driver’s test and her first solo forays out onto the open road, where teens hook up, make out and to the greater worry and sleep deprivation of their parents, get hurt or killed.

But 16 went by with no license, then 17, and then 18. Was she ill? Scared? Confused about life’s priorities? No, it turns out she was perfectly normal and part of the growing trend among young adults who have decided for a variety of reasons that driving a car, buying a car, or even getting a license, is not a high priority.

While a teen in 1984 could sling burgers for a summer and reel in a reliable but lowly Honda for $750 right before school started back up, students today can’t really touch a reliable car for less than $3,000 or so. That’s beyond the reach of most minimum wage jobs after taxes and other expenses – like cell phone bills.

 

 

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/5-reasons-young-people-are-not-buying-cars-or-getting-their-drivers-license/#ixzz2dqqfWaeJ

Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on Facebook

I remember when we hosted our first tournament, a Street Fighter II and IV event in 2010. I was deathly afraid that there wouldn't be enough parking (we have 27 spaces for the entire strip center), especially since the pizza place that used to be next door did a ton of business Friday nights. Imagine my shock when all 9 competitors and a handful of spectators arrived in a total of three cars. Almost everyone was over 17. If it was 1992 and you had a Street Fighter II event almost everyone would have drove separate. I remember seeing a ton of cars outside an otherwise sleepy area of Eastland Mall when Aladdin's Castle had one back then.

These stories have been very popular lately, but media outlets still aren't connecting the dots. On the one hand, they publish pieces about the declining popularity of driving, but then they continue to do an absolutely terrible job of covering urban issues and transit. (For example, the recent WCPO piece that referred to the Eastern Corridor commuter rail plan as "light rail".)

These stories have been very popular lately, but media outlets still aren't connecting the dots. On the one hand, they publish pieces about the declining popularity of driving, but then they continue to do an absolutely terrible job of covering urban issues and transit. (For example, the recent WCPO piece that referred to the Eastern Corridor commuter rail plan as "light rail".)

 

Nor do they ask why we're adding all these lane-miles for many millions and billions of dollars and how we're going to pay for them -- especially as the Baby Boomers have just started retiring with no similarly car-eager population to replace them. If you think you've seen a decline in driving and gas tax revenues with the resultant financial shortfalls experienced by the likes of ODOT and the Federal Highway Administration, you ain't seen nothing yet.

 

EDIT: Ironically, a friend of mine just tweeted this gem of a quote.......

Jack Shaner ‏@StatehouseJack 20m

Outrunning its fiscal headlights? ODOT laments gas tax stalling out, but supersizes road building thru Turnpike bond http://goo.gl/dtWjAN

What if you own an older car that's already paid off? You're still paying insurance, but don't have a car payment and you're not spending much on gas (if you don't drive much). That's my situation, and I would consider it "car-lite".

 

ditto.  I paid cash for a clean used car worth $10k.  I think I got a deal and a year later it has not even 10k more miles and I think I could still get what I paid for it.  Assume I lost $1500 in depreciation, plus gas, maintenance & insurance, still doesn't even amount to $5k.  That's a lot of economic freedom for less than $5k a year

Only 54% of age 18-24 have jobs, the lowest percentage since 1948.

 

http://investmentwatchblog.com/americans-ages-18-24-are-unemployed-like-never-before/

 

Unemployment hurts driving two ways: there's not as much money to pay for a car, and no reason to drive to work. For suburban kids with no other options, driving and work sort of go together. For some, the economics of driving at 18 just don't work out.

As Bob Dylan sang: "You know something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

 

A lot of us Boomers and Gen Xers on these pages are looking at the driving trends (and other things) of the millennials through the prism of our own experience. So we say, "It must be the cost of operating a car." Or, "They're young; that'll all change when they have kids." Or, "They're too focused on their electronic gadgets to think about the real world of cars and roads."

 

But my kids' generation has its own new prism through which to view the world. Here is part of it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-outsiders-how-can-millennials-change-washington-if-they-hate-it/278920/

As Bob Dylan sang: "You know something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

 

A lot of us Boomers and Gen Xers on these pages are looking at the driving trends (and other things) of the millennials through the prism of our own experience. So we say, "It must be the cost of operating a car." Or, "They're young; that'll all change when they have kids." Or, "They're too focused on their electronic gadgets to think about the real world of cars and roads."

 

But my kids' generation has its own new prism through which to view the world. Here is part of it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-outsiders-how-can-millennials-change-washington-if-they-hate-it/278920/

Before I chime in, does anyone else see the massive flaw in their study?

You mean besides the broad over-simplified assessment of an entire generation of people?

You mean besides the broad over-simplified assessment of an entire generation of people?

 

Well there's that, but there's what it's based on....

Every generation is the subject of analysis and classification. I think it was a great article. For me, this is the operative quote:

 

“We need to acknowledge that for a whole generation of Americans under the age 30, their reality is not like the reality of the over-30s grew up with.”

 

And the modus operandi for Millennials....

 

You’ve heard the knocks against Millennials. They’re narcissistic, coddled, and lazy, not to mention spoiled. But there’s more to their story. The largest and most diverse generation in U.S. history is goal-orientated, respects authority and follows rules. Millennials are less ideological than their Baby Boom parents (more on that later) and far more tolerant. In addition to famously supporting gay rights, polls show they are less prone to cast negative moral judgments on interracial marriages, single women raising children, unmarried couples living together and mothers of young children working outside the home. While their parents and grandparents preferred to work alone, young Americans are team-oriented and seek collaboration. Wired to the world, they are more likely than past generations to see the globe’s problems as their own. Millennials are eager to serve the greater community through technologies, paradoxically, that empower the individual.

 

Speaking of technology, Millennials witnessed, embraced, and in some cases instigated massive disruptions of the music, television, movie, media, and retail industries.  The most supervised and entitled generation in human history, they have no patience for inefficiency, stodgy institutions or the status quo.

I would say most people in high school don't aspire to be politicians in general. It probably comes later in life once you get into you mid-late twenties at least. Often times thirties, though. That's my main problem with the article. Though it may be true that fewer people are aspiring to be politicians.

And teen males really like anarchy, like that one kid talked about.

^^I'm sure there is increasing disillusionment, as kids have more access to news than in prior generations. Look at Sanford - re-elected despite being A COMPLETE LUNATIC. Spitzer - how on earth was his career resurrected. Weiner - just a punchline at this point, yet his career aspirations can be salvaged in a year or two, and we all know it. Kwame - among the worst of the worst. The entire Bush administration - responsible for the worst foreign policy decision in American history (or at least up there with the Filipino genocide), yet they're comfortably retired. EVen Clinton - cigar and sexual harrasment if not abuse anyone? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on on on on on on on on.

 

The politicians are no better than the Simpsons' characters. They're either corrupt (think Richard Daley) or utterly inept (think Frank Jackson), and so few of them appear to be anything more than selfish sociopaths. How can anyone idealize these monsters?

^well, if nobody else runs for office, they're gonna run the show.

Power vacuums are bad, m'kay...

But, and to bring us back on topic, the gist of the article was that the digital revolution is helping to make the status quo much less relevant.

Every generation is the subject of analysis and classification. I think it was a great article. For me, this is the operative quote:

 

“We need to acknowledge that for a whole generation of Americans under the age 30, their reality is not like the reality of the over-30s grew up with.”

 

 

 

To me it was this:

 

"So I talked to them -- at elite public high schools in suburban Washington and Boston, at Harvard University’s Kennedy School for Government, and on Capitol Hill"

 

A representative group? 

 

Not in the least.  Indeed, were I a notorious cynic I'd suspect it was cherry picked to support the desired "conclusions".

 

In science or engineering that is called "cooking the books" and is considered a cardinal sin, unless of course political advocacy has mixed in. 

 

He would have gotten similar answers in 1979.  In 2008 as well, though with more faith in government. 

 

That loss of faith in government is the telling point.

 

That reflects the failure of the "leader" to be anything such.  He actually lost vote share among younger voters.  Reagan's went up twenty points.

But, and to bring us back on topic, the gist of the article was that the digital revolution is helping to make the status quo much less relevant.

 

Yes, it is.

 

It's also made people in general a lot more like the "geeks" that triggered it. 

 

To reference my previous post, would that hypothetical 1979 researcher have gotten a better idea of the next thirty years at "elite public high schools in suburban Washington and Boston, at Harvard University’s Kennedy School for Government, and on Capitol Hill", or at MIT, Caltech, and various video arcades?

 

Do you think the answers received would have been different if he had canvassed, for example, every high school (public, private, and charter) in mottled-purple Franklin County?

^ True, the students interviewed are not a representative sample. But the article also relies heavily on three or four separate surveys that provided the basis for the questions asked of the students in the sample. And the surveys looked not just at students. The Harvard study, in particular, looked at people aged 18-29. As KJP said, the point is that we cannot ascribe the way we look at things to the generation that will soon be in charge. And, by the way, that's a generation that others surveys make clear wants rail and transit.

The Millenials have ZERO tolerance for boredom. They have spent their entire lives rarely finding themselves in boring situations with internet always around, 500 channels growing up gaming systems, endless iPod playlists and whatever else and a bunch of boring driving is simply unacceptable. Compare that with Xers and up; we constantly found ourselves bored again and again until about 2000. When something's boring we say "Oh OK, a boring situation. That's the way it goes sometimes." whereas they say "What? I'm bored? This is awful and unacceptable! I will do ANYTHING to make sure this doesn't happen again."

>True, the students interviewed are not a representative sample.

 

I know a lot of "Millennials" whose entire existence revolves around marijuana, bad music, internet porn, talking about internet porn, their phones, and talking about if not taking, sending, and viewing dick pics.  Cars as cultural capital are going the way of literature. 

^Oh please. That HARDLY describes our generation. The generation most likely to pursue higher education. Most likely to go beyond simple college and on to graduate school and sometimes to earn PHDs. The generation most willing to embrace change and even strive for it when we feel something isn't working right. Diminishing us to dick-pic sending, pot smoking, porn watching mindless drones is insulting.

Hahaha

 

Pass the dic---I mean bong

Do you think the answers received would have been different if he had canvassed, for example, every high school (public, private, and charter) in mottled-purple Franklin County?

 

Franklin County being a place with lots of governmental people, possibly not that much difference. 

 

My point is more that a similar survey in 1979 would have gained similar results.  Plus, tell those (1979) "in-group"  kids about how they could do the bulk of their shopping and even check out new bands from home and they’d think that was a terrible thing.  Those “geeks”, on the other hand, would have found it to be a pretty cool idea.

 

It’s kind of like looking at the Cold War, in retrospect.  Some people like to give Gorbachev more credit than Reagan for its demise.  But whose vision won out?

^Oh please. That HARDLY describes our generation. The generation most likely to pursue higher education. Most likely to go beyond simple college and on to graduate school and sometimes to earn PHDs. The generation most willing to embrace change and even strive for it when we feel something isn't working right. Diminishing us to dick-pic sending, pot smoking, porn watching mindless drones is insulting.

 

How much of that is a desire to improve and how much is that a desire to stick around college, thereby delaying change?

With what college and most grad schools cost, I don't think we have too many Van Wilders these days. These kids aren't taking on 6-figure debts because they enjoy keg stands

Well, I think the reactions to the Atlantic article support my point: That most of us old farts are looking at things from our own perspective and going with the flow of the status quo and and judging the young and dismissing their view of the future that they will lead.

Well, I think the reactions to the Atlantic article support my point: That most of us old farts are looking at things from our own perspective and going with the flow of the status quo and and judging the young and dismissing their view of the future that they will lead.

 

And that's cool. All of us old farts will retire in the next 10-20 years and soon be replaced. What we believe about the next generation is perishable and therefore meaningless, ultimately.

Speaking of old farts....front page of the USA Today Money section today.

 

 

Retirement Living: Top metro areas for retirees

Rodney Brooks, USA TODAY

 

 

Baby Boomers are rediscovering the city as they prepare to retire.

 

They are shedding the big homes and even the cars in search of communities where they can walk to restaurants, stores and social events.

 

"The Baby Boomers have kind of lived the suburban life," says John Brady, founder of the website TopRetirements.com. "They were chained to their jobs, held down by children. They had to live where the good schools were and where there were recreation opportunities for their children.

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2013/09/09/retire-pension-top-places-cities-baby-boomers/2759217/

That is if they can find somebody under 40 to sell their McMansion to. I'm pretty sure much of this anger against rail transit, walkability and density has much to do with the things that the Boomer and Silent generations made massive investments in seeing a decline in demand. "Damn kids, you don't get your train until you buy my place in Grove City or Fairfield that I bought when I was 22. Once you have it, you won't want some stupid train. Trust me, you'll want this thing I wanted since I was 15 when you reach 45."

>The generation most willing to embrace change and even strive for it when we feel something isn't working right.

 

Is "the generation" doing any of this independent of what pop culture is telling them to do?  Absolutely not.  The massive shift toward gay tolerance, interracial relationship tolerance, etc, is the direct result of Hollywood, etc., creating television and movies that celebrated, normalized, and even came in some situations to rank such relationships superior to ordinary straight relationships.  And this is largely across the board age-wise, not just young people.  These days 55 and 60 year-old women who hardly knew any gay people before the year 2003 all want a gay shopping buddy now. 

 

People are MASSIVELY influenced by TV, movies, music, and fashion.  When I was in high school in the early 90s, I was the only person I knew, male or female, who wanted to move to New York City.  The city was lawless and affordable and incredibly creative in a way it isn't anymore.  After Sex and the City, young women moved from the Midwest en masse to NYC and drove up the rents:

http://observer.com/2008/04/in-new-york-its-raining-single-women/

 

It's the same thing with cars.  At some point magazines I don't read and shows I don't watch started depicting young people riding antique bicycles as having cultural sophistication over and above those who drove.  People look at a photo in a magazine and say "I can't be a jock, but I can be that..." and they go about making it happen.  Fashion/creating a new you is painting by number.  The appearance of it all changes from decade to decade, but the game doesn't.