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Old 03-15-2014, 08:28 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,574 posts, read 10,684,729 times
Reputation: 6512

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Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57 View Post
We are getting pretty darn tired, too. So the Gen Y folks are more than welcome to jump in there and start rolling the stone uphill. Likewise with the millennials, 40% of whom according to what somebody posted today, are still living with their baby boomer parents.

As the saying goes, after you, Alphonse.
Speaking of getting carried away.... That is really an unfair/low-blow thing to say. Largely, it is an extreme over-simplification that is misleading and I think you know that. I know you're not the first to say and it is a favorite thing of Fox News that has mostly an older (babyboomer) white male audience.

You should try graduating from college in years like 2008 and 2009. You end up with few job opportunities and enormous competition for those opportunities. The truth it is really isn't their fault or their control. It isn't a reflection of how hard they worked or didn't. It is just the reality of the world they face when they first start off. Whereas graduates 5 years before that had it better, 10 years before that had it better, 15-20 years before that had it great, etc...

That 40% figure isn't a reflection about Gen. Y'rs themselves as much as it is a reflection of the bad off the world was left for them to start off in. And what generation has had the most political control in both government and private companies (including banks) that has shaped the way the economy was left in and caused the second largest recession in the last 100 years... I'll give you a hint... It wasn't the Generation Y'rs just starting out.

So if you want to get into an argument about what Generation Y needs to do or hasn't done, I'm sure there are much more educated routes to follow. I also don't believe we are perfect, have all the answers, or know exactly all the right things to do... In many ways we still need to figure out how to get things done, but to direct blame at them for the effects of entering an extremely bad job market when they are first trying to start out their lives. That is just low and I simply cannot tolerate those types of simple one-line arguments.

An advanced economy takes a certain level of investment and it takes many years and decades for those investments to take place. The problem I have is for the last 3 decades the mantra of many baby boomers, particularly down here in Georgia, have been more conservative and have been about cutting government investment. Post WWII the generation before the baby boomers left the world with huge amounts of investment. They were the ones who started all of the airport and interstate projects. They were the ones that made huge down payments. That gigantic freight railway system you mentioned, is mostly working off of the backbone built in the pre-car era. The investment we have put into rail in the last few decades has been minimal compared to what it was earlier in the century.

Babyboomers helped, but they also kept cutting back the government's rate of investment as they grew older and maintained more power. Our generation is actually more prepared to be proactive. These things aren't going to get built, just because we enter the labor force and start building the roads themselves. It takes government action and society wide political will to get that ball rolling.

It isn't that 40% being lazy on their parents couches that need to go grab a shovel and start building roads and rails for free. It will take more advanced society-wide leadership, which Generation Y can't take those reigns yet. So far, we still don't have enough political power built up and are still living in the political shadow of baby boomers and the political agendas they have been pushing for the last few decades. Some of those agendas will mesh well with what our generation wants and some will not.

We will change that and have already started, but we aren't quite there yet. The amount of power our generation had at changing the course of the recent presidential elections was really telling. However, we still have many decades of political gerrymandering of house representative districts in the way that needs to be worked out.

Now what is changing and the way we are leading... We lead the private industry with where we decide to put our money. Intown properties across the US are getting better, because it is mainly the younger generation deciding to put money and investment into them. Local governments to various degrees have taken advantage of that to incorporate that through their local policies to various degrees of success or failure, but ultimately at the moment it is led through our private spending from those of us that can.
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Old 03-15-2014, 08:37 PM
 
3,972 posts, read 12,602,826 times
Reputation: 1470
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwkimbro View Post
I'm not quite sure the context of your comment, because I don't know specifically who you're replying to... but two points:

1) With regards to transit acceptance, I think racial voting blocks are less important for the future. Age/generation will be. There is a huge gap between transit acceptance and desire to fund it between baby boomers and generation Y. The baby boomers were such a large group the desires and mood of their generation really set the social tone and the political tone of every decade. They are use to having more control, while the generations after them have had less. This is rapidly changing and I do think there is some built up anxiety with generations X and Y over the control baby boomers have had on certain issues and their stubbornness to accept that generations after them might want different things and there is no one single right/correct way to build a city. Truth is, transit expansion will happen in the future without a doubt. The problem is it will be significantly delayed and with 30-40 year funding/construction outlays those of us today will not see a fully built out system across the Atlanta region.
I am not sure the next generation will be so eager to tax themselves -- they aren't seeing job security, advancement opportunities and other economic stability that their grandparents (baby boomers) mostly saw as adult earners. They have seen their parents lose jobs at the height of their earning power, houses lose their value, etc and I think they understand the fragility of it all much more so, than say my generation -- which is just outside the edge of the baby boom and when we were "coming of age" things were overall pretty good if not great. They are worried about their financial security...
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Old 03-15-2014, 08:52 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,574 posts, read 10,684,729 times
Reputation: 6512
Quote:
Originally Posted by lastminutemom View Post
I am not sure the next generation will be so eager to tax themselves -- they aren't seeing job security, advancement opportunities and other economic stability that their grandparents (baby boomers) mostly saw as adult earners. They have seen their parents lose jobs at the height of their earning power, houses lose their value, etc and I think they understand the fragility of it all much more so, than say my generation -- which is just outside the edge of the baby boom and when we were "coming of age" things were overall pretty good if not great. They are worried about their financial security...
True and a great deal of economic research about the after effects of recessions also show things about younger workers do not change jobs as much as they value job security more and it can hold them back from walking up the ladder a bit.

You make a very good point, but I do feel they will isolate certain things where we feel we didn't invest enough. I do think most my friends are more likely to be ok with the gas tax being 10 cents higher, than my parents and their friends seem to be. We will seek ways to invest in things we value that we feel previous generations didn't value and inversely we might pull investments away from things we feel are no longer needed.

The other side to this... It is also how we tax. Most of the tax breaks in the last few decades have been very regressive cuts. This is largely why many in the middle class don't feel it or notice it much, even when the cut was rather large. There is more room to do away with the old regressive cuts as well.

While the bottom 60% aren't doing too hot in my generation, the top 15% is booming and has more wealth than ever. Much of that wealth in that 15% will be handed down to them.

Some advanced industrial countries consider the US to be a tax haven for the rich.

To put it briefly... there is still a ton of money in our economy and it is growing quickly, the difference is where that money has ended up and who is spending it, who is holding on to it, and who is investing it.
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Old 03-15-2014, 08:56 PM
 
Location: M I N N E S O T A
14,848 posts, read 21,376,619 times
Reputation: 9263
What will it take to change the mentality about transportation in this city?

Time machine - bring everyone to a time period before cars were invented.
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