![millennialpark.jpg millennialpark.jpg](http://www.newgeography.com/files/imagecache/Chart_Story_Inset/millennialpark.jpg)
Back in the 1950s and 60s when Baby Boomers were young, places like Los Angeles led the nation’s explosive growth in suburban living that has defined the American Dream ever since. As Kevin Roderick observed, the San Fernando Valley became, by extension, “America’s suburb” – a model which would be repeated in virtually every community across the country.
These suburbs – perfectly suited to the sun-washed car culture of Southern California – have remained the ideal for most Americans. And they remain so for the children of Boomer and Generation X parents, Millennials,(born 1982-2003), who express the same strong interest in raising their families in suburban settings.
According to the most recent generational survey research, done for Washington-based think tank, NDN, by Frank N. Magid Associates, 43 percent of Millennials describe suburbs as their “ideal place to live,” compared to just 31 percent of older generations. In the same survey, a majority of older generations (56%) expressed a preference for either small town or rural living. This may reflect the roots of many older Americans, who are more likely to have grown up outside of a major metropolis, or it may indicate a desire of older people for a presumably simpler lifestyle.
By contrast, these locations were cited by only 34 percent of Millennials as their
preferred place to live. A majority (54%) of Millennials live in suburban America and most of those who do express a preference for raising their own families in similar settings. Even though big cities are often thought of as the place where young people prefer to live and work, only 17 percent of Millennials say they want to live in one, less than a third of those expressing a preference for suburban living. Nor are they particularly anxious to spend their lives as renters in dense, urban locations. A full 64 percent of Millennials surveyed, said it was “very important” to have an opportunity to own their own home. Twenty percent of adult Millennials named owning a home as one of their most important priorities in life, right behind being a good parent and having a successful marriage.
This suggests that some of the greatest opportunities in housing will be in those metropolitan areas that can provide the same amenities of suburban life that Los Angeles did sixty years ago. In this Millennials are just like their parents who moved to the suburbs in order to buy their own home, with a front and back yard, however small, in a safe neighborhood with good schools.
Given the fact that nearly four in five Millennials express a desire to have children, cities that wish to attract Millennials for the long-term will have to offer these same benefits. These Millennial metropolises also will need to be built with the active participation of their citizens, using the most modern communication technologies, to create a community that reflects this generation’s community-oriented values and beliefs. Metropolises that wish to attract Millennials, will also need to include them in their governing institutions. Such cities will have a leg up on those run by closed, good old boy networks that don’t reflect the tolerance and transparency Millennials believe in.
The passion of Millennials for social networking and smart phones reflects their need to stay in touch with their wide circle of friends every moment of the day and night. In fact, 83 percent of this generation say that they go to sleep with their cell phone. This group-oriented behavior is reflected in the efforts of Millennials to find win-win solutions to any problem and their strong desire to strengthen civic institutions. Seventy percent of college age Millennials have performed some sort of community service and virtually every member of the generation (94%) considers volunteer service as an effective way to deal with challenges in their local community.
The other key characteristic of the Millenial metropolis will be how it carves out a safe place for children. The Boomer parents of Millennials took intense interest in every aspect of their children’s lives, earning them the sobriquet “helicopter parents” because of their constant hovering. Now the Generation X “stealth fighter parents” of younger Millennials are turning the Boomer desire to hover and talk into a push for action and better bottom line results.
This can already be seen in cities like Los Angeles where a parent revolution is successfully challenging the entrenched interests in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
The idea began with a website, www.parentrevolution.org, that offered a bargain to parents willing to participate in a grass roots effort to improve individual schools. The organizers, led by Ben Austin, a long time advocate on behalf of Los Angeles’s kids, promised that if half of the parents in a school attendance district signed an online petition indicating their willingness to participate in improving their local school, they would “give you a great school for your child to attend.”
This process has worked both in working class areas like East Los Angeles’ Garfield High School and the Mark Twain Middle School in affluent West LA. With the backing of the parents, Austin went to the Los Angeles school district and demanded that they either put the management of the school “out to bid,” or his organization would be forced to respond to the parent’s demands by starting a charter school in competition with the LAUSD school. Since each child has seven thousand dollars of potential state funding in their back pack, a newly enlightened LAUSD agreed to these demands. When 3000 parents showed up to demonstrate their support of the concept, the school district voted 6-1 to adopt a policy mandating competitive bids eventually be issued for the management of all 250 “demonstrably failing schools” as defined by federal education law.
The key to building the Millenial metropolis will be to accommodate such changes. Places like Dallas, Houston, Austin, or Raleigh-Durham that have survived the Great Recession reasonably well now are focusing on producing open, accessible communities with good schools and safe streets. These communities appear best positioned to take advantage of the next bloom of urban growth. Of course the ability to provide America’s next great generation with good jobs and a growing economy will also be required if any metropolis wants to attract Millennials. But with the right leadership and a sustained effort to focus on the basics of family living, almost any city has the opportunity to become a leader in the rebirth of America’s Millennial Era metropolises.
Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008), named one of the 10 favorite books by the New York Times in 2008.
Photo: Papalars
I recently came across your
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
girlfriend system testimonials
very interesting post.this
very interesting post.this is my first time visit here.i found so mmany interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion..thanks for the post!
Webinar Jam Studio Review
Wow what a Great Information
Wow what a Great Information about World Day its very nice informative post. thanks for the post.
gfas v2 user reviews
Thanks for sharing nice
Thanks for sharing nice information with us. i like your post and all you share with us is uptodate and quite informative, i would like to bookmark the page so i can come here again to read you, as you have done a wonderful job.
http://sgdatingweb.com/gfas-review-how-the-girlfriend-activation-system-attracts-women/
Hey what a brilliant post I
Hey what a brilliant post I have come across and believe me I have been searching out for this similar kind of post for past a week and hardly came across this. Thank you very much and will look for more postings from you.
kten.com/
It was wondering if I could
It was wondering if I could use this write-up on my other website, I will link it back to your website though.Great Thanks.
https://rebelmouse.com/languageofdesirereviews/
Great job for publishing
Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too. There tend to be not many people who can certainly write not so simple posts that artistically. Continue the nice writing
tx truck accessories
Thanks for sharing the info,
Thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going.... I really enjoyed exploring your site. good resource...
https://www.rebelmouse.com/strongsightvisionprogramreview/
This is a great inspiring
This is a great inspiring article.I am pretty much pleased with your good work.You put really very helpful information. Keep it up. Keep blogging. Looking to reading your next post.
beauty whitening cream
me
he thong sieu thi mevabe cung cap do dung cho me va be chinh hang, sua tuoi vinamilk 100% nguyen chat, sua Nestle cho tre em tai sieu thi sua bot lon nhat viet nam , ban co the xem them cac san pham sua Physiolac gia tot nhat hien nay , cung voi Bao moi choi game iwin online tren mobile