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Yea I'd agree. It really seems to be the younger people in the 20s preferring an urban lifestyle, without needing a car for everything, walkable amenities, etc.
Even the young planners are all about livable communities, environmental planning, stopping sprawl, rebuilding our passenger rail system and mass transit systems. In the planning field it still tends to be the people who are in the 40-retirement age dinosaurs who keep pushing wider freeways, more sprawl, more cars, moving cars faster, etc. Traffic engineers worried about moving cars as fast as possible above all else instead of making places that people actually want to live in.
We'll see what happens when these young people start having children, but I really do think a lot of them will still try to live in an urban environment. Time will tell.[/QUOTE]
I have lived in my urban neighborhood for 25 years. It's always the same. Most young couples move into apartments but after awhile when they begin their families they move to the burbs for the schools and the less expensive housing with more room. There are exceptions of course with those who really love an urban environment and can afford housing in the city staying if they can find a house there.
I don't think that is a situation that will ever change.
In Portland, they tried a huge experiment regarding cars v bikes v public transportation that failed spectacularly. Housing was needed for the many twenty somethings that were pouring into the city. The City hoped that creating large apartment buildings in the older, popular, walkable, trendy neighborhoods where everyone wanted to live would ease the extremely high housing shortage. Also, they hoped that not having parking facilities in the buildings in these neighborhoods that did not have enough street parking and creating bike lanes would encourage young people to bike everywhere and not own cars. They even had bike elevators built in some of the buildings like those you see that carry grocery carts in supermarkets to and from parking lots so people could bring their bikes to the top floors but no people elevators.
So older houses were torn down and new buildings were built with no parking spaces. And young people did rent the apartments and they did bring their bikes. But the trouble was, they brought their cars too. One survey showed ten tenants all with bikes had eleven cars among them. All tenants were in their early twenties.
It's a nightmare with new tenants parking in front of driveways, walkways and everywhere imaginable. Business owners complain people cannot find parking to shop in their stores. To make matters worse, since the bike/car owning tenants of the buildings do bike a lot, their cars sit for days in one spot leaving no opportunity for others to park in the spots they have taken over.
Finally, too late, with these building still going up, the City has decreed newer ones must have parking spaces to accommodate at least one car per tenant.
Most people of all ages from what I have seen are willing to give up the opportunity to own a car. The genie is out of the bottle and it isn't going back in anytime soon.
I am not saying this as in defense of drivers since I don't drive nor have I ever owned a car. And I am not knocking younger people. I think this generation is just fine. I don't make derogatory remarks about an entire category of people. I am just saying that people are people and I think all ages follow suit in their behavior as they get older.
You talk about planners which I assume you mean urban planners to be in their 40's. Actually they are mostly new college grads in the twenties and those with experience in their 30's. At least they are in my city. And I am curious as to how you set retirement age beginning at 40? I bet a lot of people would wish that were true. LOL!I have a hunch you are still in school.
I meant around age 40 until whenever they retire, not retire at 40. There are a lot of young urban planners, but it is many of the older ones who get to make the decisions that affect our development patterns the most. Once that block starts to retire, things will probably get better. Portland probably does have a lot of young planners (hence it being more progressive, etc), I can buy that. In most of the country though (outside hip places like SF, Portland, Seattle, Austin, etc), there are a lot more old people in the planning field. There are always issues with building dense development, it is part of living in a city and living an urban lifestyle. Hopefully Portland continues to improve its mass transportation system to help these people live without their cars.
I agree that younger people want to be in the action of things. IMO, I'd rather walk to work if I could. A lot of suburbs don't provide a lot of local things to do for younger people but this is from my experience. The ones that do are college towns for the most part. This is true in Phoenix and a couple of other cities I've been too, but I would like to believe not all cities are like this.
Here in Phoenix, it is about mid $3 per gallon for gas. In a lot of Phoenix, it is about a good twenty minute drive to about anything vaguely interesting other than grocery stores and chain restaurants. It's no California, but I wouldn't say the gas is cheap. However, Phoenix isn't walkable in any form because of the drive said above, but the weather also. I currently spend more money on gas than anything else. Assuming I live a similar lifestyle, I would save a lot of money without a car.
I'd rather pay the higher COL, be closer to restaurants, work, and all the other things the city has to offer than have a car. But that's me. Also, no rush hour traffic!
I would hate the idea of not having a car though, I have a BMW E30 with cheap insurance that I would never get rid of. I live in the suburbs now and I hate it. Our downtown is pretty active now but I should be moving to New Orleans in September anyway.
I would hate the idea of not having a car though, I have a BMW E30 with cheap insurance that I would never get rid of. I live in the suburbs now and I hate it. Our downtown is pretty active now but I should be moving to New Orleans in September anyway.
I like having my car, really. It's pretty much a necessity though, since you can live on the public transportation here but the buses always run late and our recently built LightRail doesn't go through all of the city. Even if I lived in Downtown here, I'd still have to make frequent drives to the suburbs because all the events and restaurants are spread out. It would just be nice to have the planning to fit the polar opposite of what's here in Phoenix due to the driving time it takes.
Yea I'd agree. It really seems to be the younger people in the 20s preferring an urban lifestyle, without needing a car for everything, walkable amenities, etc.
Even the young planners are all about livable communities, environmental planning, stopping sprawl, rebuilding our passenger rail system and mass transit systems. In the planning field it still tends to be the people who are in the 40-retirement age dinosaurs who keep pushing wider freeways, more sprawl, more cars, moving cars faster, etc. Traffic engineers worried about moving cars as fast as possible above all else instead of making places that people actually want to live in.
We'll see what happens when these young people start having children, but I really do think a lot of them will still try to live in an urban environment. Time will tell.[/QUOTE]
I have lived in my urban neighborhood for 25 years. It's always the same. Most young couples move into apartments but after awhile when they begin their families they move to the burbs for the schools and the less expensive housing with more room. There are exceptions of course with those who really love an urban environment and can afford housing in the city staying if they can find a house there.
I don't think that is a situation that will ever change.
In Portland, they tried a huge experiment regarding cars v bikes v public transportation that failed spectacularly. Housing was needed for the many twenty somethings that were pouring into the city. The City hoped that creating large apartment buildings in the older, popular, walkable, trendy neighborhoods where everyone wanted to live would ease the extremely high housing shortage. Also, they hoped that not having parking facilities in the buildings in these neighborhoods that did not have enough street parking and creating bike lanes would encourage young people to bike everywhere and not own cars. They even had bike elevators built in some of the buildings like those you see that carry grocery carts in supermarkets to and from parking lots so people could bring their bikes to the top floors but no people elevators.
So older houses were torn down and new buildings were built with no parking spaces. And young people did rent the apartments and they did bring their bikes. But the trouble was, they brought their cars too. One survey showed ten tenants all with bikes had eleven cars among them. All tenants were in their early twenties.
It's a nightmare with new tenants parking in front of driveways, walkways and everywhere imaginable. Business owners complain people cannot find parking to shop in their stores. To make matters worse, since the bike/car owning tenants of the buildings do bike a lot, their cars sit for days in one spot leaving no opportunity for others to park in the spots they have taken over.
Finally, too late, with these building still going up, the City has decreed newer ones must have parking spaces to accommodate at least one car per tenant.
Most people of all ages from what I have seen are willing to give up the opportunity to own a car. The genie is out of the bottle and it isn't going back in anytime soon.
I am not saying this as in defense of drivers since I don't drive nor have I ever owned a car. And I am not knocking younger people. I think this generation is just fine. I don't make derogatory remarks about an entire category of people. I am just saying that people are people and I think all ages follow suit in their behavior as they get older.
You talk about planners which I assume you mean urban planners to be in their 40's. Actually they are mostly new college grads in the twenties and those with experience in their 30's. At least they are in my city. And I am curious as to how you set retirement age beginning at 40? I bet a lot of people would wish that were true. LOL!I have a hunch you are still in school.
I'm not sure why you're using anecdotes as evidence of generational trends. And what's ironic about your story is that the apartments were NOT a failure. A true failure would've been to have no one move in. Clearly people did. The problem I see is that the city only planned for bike usage. What other forms of mass transit were available? If none, that would be the real failure.
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