
Peak Millennial? Cities Can’t Assume a Continued Boost from the Young - lr
https://nytimes.com/2017/01/23/upshot/peak-millennial-cities-cant-assume-a-continued-boost-from-the-young.html
======
Decade
As usual, the NY Times sees an actual phenomenon, but fails to understand it.

Softening rents? That’s because you have a limited resource of people willing
and able to pay $3000 to $5000 for a single bedroom apartment. It doesn’t take
much construction to saturate that market.

The problem there is that housing is so insanely difficult to build in a place
like New York or San Francisco. There are far more people who can pay $1000
for 1 bedroom, or $3000 for 4 bedrooms (roommates, typically), and it would be
insane to ignore that market. But abusive zoning laws and the capricious
permit process ensure that that price of housing would be unprofitable. So the
big developers and financiers wait until the market goes to insanity levels
before making a little boom of construction.

We need to reform housing, allowing increased density and by-right permit
approvals, and then the little guy has a chance to build affordable housing.

~~~
diminoten
I realize this is super unpopular as an opinion, but why is it always a given
that everyone should be able to live everywhere? What's inherently wrong with
high rent in San Francisco?

I'm sure we can talk about lots of bad reasons why rent is high, but the mere
fact of high rent isn't itself bad, right? Why do we need to reform?

~~~
Decade
Some people paying high rent is fine. You are rich, you get to spend a lot of
money. Usually, I don't care.

Cities are important for too many reasons for me to enumerate right now.
Basically, if we can't keep cities healthy, then our civilization will
collapse, and we won't be able to rebuild.

We have a problem when the option to spend less is not available. Then, to
have access to the jobs and opportunities of the city, the workers have to
spend inordinate amounts of money on expensive rents and time on commuting,
which reduces the social benefit of having jobs.

[https://medium.com/@laurafooteclark/how-do-we-avoid-
another-...](https://medium.com/@laurafooteclark/how-do-we-avoid-another-
trump-1d4fcf04b9fe)

It also reduces the real wealth, as value is diverted to past landowners (and
tenants taking advantage of abusive laws, which are why I never supported the
San Francisco Tenants Union) and not to the city as a whole. The Bay Area
schools can't even hire teachers for all of their classrooms. We are awash in
money, but experiencing poverty.

~~~
diminoten
If it were a "real" poverty experience, house values would drop, wouldn't
they?

Apparently the issues experienced as a result of high housing prices aren't
valued enough to drive prices of the homes down, yet.

I guess my point, if I had one at all, is that it seems like the housing
market is absurdly high in such a way that will _eventually_ self balance, one
way or another. Either the city will continue to sustain itself on the backs
of the long commuters who can't afford to live in the city, or the quality of
life in the city will drop, which will in turn lower housing prices until the
workers who make the city life appealing can afford to live close enough to
again commute reasonably.

If, as you say, education is suffering, people will stop buying the houses, or
they'll stop bringing kids to the districts. Either way, problem self-
corrects, right?

~~~
lostdog
Not everyone is driven into poverty at the same price point.

With a tech salary it's possible to float above the rising prices, but
everyone else gets driven out.

Housing prices will not "balance" because demand is extremely high and much of
that demand has high salaries, and supply is extremely restricted (by NIMBY's
and the laws they support).

------
forkandwait
In this debate, we should look to cities in other countries. As I understand
it, Paris/ Vancouver/ London/ Tokyo etc have never been subject to the "rule"
that young couples move to the suburbs once they are ready to raise families.
Nor are they subject to the rule that cities are dangerous and have bad
schools. If we can fix schools and crime, like other civilized nations, then
there is no reason to believe people will move out of cities once they reach a
certain age.

~~~
pc86
You say "fix schools and crime" like it is known empirically what to do. It is
not as simple as pumping money into the districts.

France, Canada, England, Japan and other "civilized nations" debate how best
to fund schools and fight crime just like the US.

~~~
Arizhel
Japan is pretty famous for having almost no crime. I doubt they're debating
crime-fighting. Their main problems as a society seem to be workaholism and a
lack of children, not crime or school quality.

Here in the US, crime has been falling steadily for decades now, and no one's
really sure why. One big theory is that the elimination of leaded gasoline had
a big effect: our population was suffering from low-level lead poisoning from
all the lead in the air and environment. But crime here is of course still
much, much worse than Japan. Crime in England is probably significantly worse,
with the main difference being that you don't have to worry much about getting
shot over there, but you have to worry a lot more about being mugged or
knifed.

~~~
gaius
_Japan is pretty famous for having almost no crime. I doubt they 're debating
crime-fightin_

The reason for this is not generally applicable outside extremely homogeneous
populations.

~~~
clock_tower
What's the reason, then? Looking at Appalachia and southern Italy, I don't see
any reason to believe that ethnic/racial/cultural homogeneity is a magic
bullet.

~~~
Arizhel
It's definitely not, proven by the examples you cited.

Where you get ultra-low crime is when you combine that homogeneity with good
public education. Take a look at the education systems and levels in places
like Japan or Norway, and then compare to Appalachia or Sicily or various
middle eastern nations. Also look at the levels of religiosity.

~~~
clock_tower
But if good public education and low religiosity were the magic bullets, the
Soviet Union would never have fallen; if homogeneity was necessary, Singapore
wouldn't work and the Ottoman Empire would always have been dysfunctional; if
high religiosity was bad in itself, Bavaria would be a hellhole. Some
religions get in the way, others don't -- and some actively help to enrich
their societies. (Zoroastrianism should come to mind. Rice was the staple crop
of Persia before it was the staple of China, thanks to pious Zoroastrian
agricultural research; and building an aqueduct or draining a swamp was a fast
path to paradise. Down to the present, the Zoroastrians do pretty well for
themselves -- the Parsis of India are the main population of Zoroastrians
today -- and some of their habits of mind seem to still be present in Iran
today.)

I've come to believe that the potential to rise in social position is what
matters most, except possibly in Zoroastrian societies. Appalachia, Sicily
(including lower-class parts of Boston), and the Middle East all agree that
where you were born is where you'll stay, and that ambition is ridiculous or
contemptible; while the healthiest societies are the ones where talent can
bubble to the top even if you're not the judge's son.

My favorite example of the vitality that social mobility brings is the Ibo of
Nigeria -- "the Jews of Africa", the most successful and energetic of West
African peoples. Also look at the dynamic nature of the early Islamic world,
compared compared to the stagnant nature of the modern one. And what's true of
the Islamic world is equally true of the Iberian one; Brazil and West Virginia
have the same basic problem. And back in the Middle Ages, too, it was the most
fluid societies -- Lombardy, England, the Low Countries, and the Iberian
states -- that were the most successful ones.

~~~
Arizhel
You make some great points, but for your Soviet Union point I'd like to
counter that indoctrination does not equal "good public education". Good
public education teaches you to question authority and to think critically.
That kind of education is notably absent in authoritarian regimes.

Also, I never said that religiosity by itself would result in downfall of a
society. Lots of religious societies have done well in history, but they also
had relatively good education. The early Islamic world you mention I think
qualifies here. It's when you combine religiosity with terrible education that
you're really doomed. The education serves as a check against the religiosity
getting out of control and turning into theocracy, or whatever you call the
wackiness we're seeing in the right-wing here in America today.

~~~
clock_tower
The Soviets really did do a good job in some important areas. No one had taken
the basic skills, the "three Rs", seriously in Russia before them; science and
engineering were also pretty good (apart from Lysenko in biology), and while
20th-century culture was closed off, 19th-century was certainly accessible.
(Hugo and Dumas were a big part of Soviet popular culture, not in the sense of
"what the state sponsored" but in the sense of "what people actually read.")
Insofar as critical thinking is a subset of logic, science and math taught at
least a little of it, too. Understand that I'm not defending the Soviets as a
whole -- I think they were mostly cancer, and that the historical record backs
me up on that -- but deserve credit where credit's due.

I think that the American right is a unique sort of society, and that patterns
drawn from their behavior can't be relied on in most other contexts. Their
religions look like Christianity but act like non-syncretistic paganism
("worshiping oneself in the guise of worshiping God"), and their hostility to
an awful lot of scholarship seems to originate in not wanting to be taken for
a ride -- and in the confidence of many peoples, especially relatively
backwards ones, that they already know everything that's necessary in order to
live well. (The Persians told Chardin as much in the 1500s, as mentioned in
_The Structures of Everyday Life_.)

Have you read _Albion 's Seed_? If not (and it's about 600 pages of historical
scholarship, so I won't blame you), look up Slate Star Codex's review, which
makes the book's essential points in reduced (and maybe slightly caricatured)
form.

------
pizzetta
Living with roommates and living in small quarters as well as spending half of
your money on housing is okay when you are single and having fun exploring
your self and your potential and direction --but once people have children
equations change and living in the city becomes less possible --mostly because
of the lack of "family-centric" housing stock --whether detached units or
multi-bedroom condos and apartment units along with city amenities for kids as
well as good school systems. In SF, for example, bad school districts is a
very big reason for people to leave for better districts --some parents of
means will remain but put their kids in private schools, obviously that does
not scale.

~~~
scurvy
When you say bad school districts in SF, you mean the one district, right? SF
school assignment is a (failed social experiment) lottery system where your
kids can be assigned anywhere in the city, regardless of the fact that you
live a block from a school.

Most parents leave SF because they don't want their kids being part of a
failed social experiment. The SF USD has been playing social scientist since
the 1970s with disastrous results.

Want to make it better? Kick the DINKs off the school board and make having an
enrolled child a requirement for being on the board.

~~~
tabeth
Don't live in SF, but I fail to see how that's inherently bad. It is
inconvenient, for sure. But if the school a block from you was terrible and
the school your child was randomly assigned to was amazing there would be no
problems, right? Doesn't this system simply incentivize all schools to become
good?

I do bet, though, that this experiment stemmed from people taking over the
areas where the good schools were. You'd just be switching problems, though,
by allowing people to go to schools they're geographically adjacent to. See
school district boundaries.

~~~
scurvy
You end up with universally bad schools instead of good and bad schools. Most
parents would see that as a bad thing and the very rich pull their kids out
and send them to private schools (which cost $30k+/year). So now you're left
with bad schools and the rich have exercised their escape option. The result
is a high school population where 80% of students live in public housing. I'm
not a classist, but that's not the diversity most parents look for.

To balance it out, you would need some sort of region wide tax on private
school attendance. If you want to opt out, you gotta pay. That would never
happen so...back to the drawing board.

~~~
jdmichal
> To balance it out, you would need some sort of region wide tax on private
> school attendance. If you want to opt out, you gotta pay. That would never
> happen so...back to the drawing board.

I don't understand this. That tax already exists; _everyone_ [0] pays for
public schools regardless of whether they have children in the system. If you
send your children to private school, you are paying for both public and
private school. If you don't have children at all, you are still paying for
public school.

[0] Of course, "everyone" likely means "every property owner", as school taxes
are usually property taxes.

~~~
Cerium
Which is why we need to fight the concept of "school vouchers" \- the idea
that if you don't go to public school you should get your share of the public
school cash to help pay for private school.

~~~
zeveb
Why fight it? It seems only fair that poor people get the same option to
choose good schools for their children that rich people get. I honestly don't
see what possible argument there is against it.

~~~
ericd
The idea is that public schools should be made good, the government should not
be reducing the use of public schools. A good public schooling system is
incredibly important for a functioning democracy, because a functioning
democracy relies on a well educated citizenry.

~~~
wtbob
> A good public schooling system is incredibly important for a functioning
> democracy, because a functioning democracy relies on a well educated
> citizenry.

A good _schooling_ system is necessary, but must it be public?

~~~
ericd
It's important that it be affordable to everyone, regardless of wealth. If
it's private with public funding and a profit motive, that messes things up
pretty hard - see what's been happening with college tuitions and unlimited
lines of public credit.

~~~
wtbob
> It's important that it be affordable to everyone, regardless of wealth.

That's the whole point of giving each child's parents that child's share of
public-education funds.

> If it's private with public funding and a profit motive, that messes things
> up pretty hard - see what's been happening with college tuitions and
> unlimited lines of public credit.

Teachers' and administrators' salaries are private profits from public
funding, too.

You are, of course, correct that private schools would see the voucher amount
as a price floor.

I think that there are bigger issues with collegiate funding, which have to do
that people borrow from their futures (backed by public funds) in order to pay
for near-term benefits for themselves. I'd have lived much more frugally in
college had I internalised that I'd be paying those funds back.

------
fovc
Why is it that suburban living is so much cheaper? It's never been clear to me
why that should be the case (from first principles).

With the greater density (3x according to [1]), you'd expect lower utilities,
transportation, etc. costs. "Shelter" (i.e., housing minus utilities,
furniture, etc.) is typically only a bit more than transportation as a
category of spend, and about 1/5 of total annual expenditures.[2]

I've read claims that suburban property taxes are artificially low (mainly on
articles on HN, but can't seem to find any right now) and obviously funding
highways and commuter rail out of general taxes subsidizes sprawl.

I wonder how this cost comparison would look from a balance of system
perspective as is, and then what a higher land tax would do. Has anyone seen
or done anything like this?

[1] [http://www.demographia.com/db-intlsub.htm](http://www.demographia.com/db-
intlsub.htm) [2]
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm)

~~~
Tiktaalik
It's not cheaper. It's just that people don't factor in the dramatically
increased transportation costs.

Metro Vancouver studied this and found that when transportation costs were
factored in, car reliant outer suburbs became more expensive than "pricy"
downtown and inner suburbs.

[http://bc.ctvnews.ca/suburbs-pricier-than-vancouver-when-
tra...](http://bc.ctvnews.ca/suburbs-pricier-than-vancouver-when-
transportation-factored-in-study-1.2364563)

~~~
nck4222
That study assumes a lot (suddenly you have a 2 car household if you live in
the suburbs vs 0 cars in the city?), looks at averages, analyzes two things
that people spend money on, and only considers Vancouver and its suburbs.

That's not quite enough to support the blanket statement "living in the
suburbs is not cheaper than living in a city."

As someone who's in this situation right now, I can guarantee you that moving
out of my city is the frugal option.

~~~
Tiktaalik
The article mentions two car household etc but the actual data comes from the
national census where people simply report how much they spend on
transportation. There's no assumptions made about what people's commutes are
or what their transportation mode is. People just spend more on transport in
the suburbs.

The reason is for this is because many of these suburbs are wholly designed
for the car and that's the only viable transportation option for anything and
the car is the most expensive form of transportation.

------
jartelt
Several of my friends are considering moving from SF and other popular places
on the peninsula to Half Moon Bay (or somewhere like it). When rent for your 2
bedroom apartment goes over $3,000, you notice that you are basically paying
the equivalent of the monthly mortgage payment on a $750,000 house. Then, you
realize you may be having kids in a few years and will probably want a small
yard and no shared walls. Of course, you then must start saving like mad so
you can get the ~$100k needed for the down payment on your $800k fixer upper.

~~~
sjg007
Half Moon Bay is not that much cheaper...

~~~
jartelt
True, it's not THAT much cheaper, but it's a place where can actually find a 3
bedroom / 2 bathroom standalone home for <$1M in the bay area that is within
45 minutes of most jobs. When you can only afford a $800k mortgage, your
options are severely limited.

------
dcchambers
I find it interesting that people in this thread are quick to point out that
you might not save much money when you move to the suburbs because of transit
and extra time costs. I think people are failing to realize a large people do
(and I plan to soon) move to the 'burbs is because they can OWN a house. Even
if owning won't save money over renting, there's a lot to be said for having
something that big to call your own. Something you can create your own lasting
memories in.

------
amyjess
My cousin (born in 1980; just _barely_ on the Gen-X side of the line between
Xers and Millennials) lives in Manhattan and has two kids. She told me not too
long ago that she's planning on moving out to the suburbs pretty soon because
they just don't have enough room. Their apartment is one of the _smallest_
two-bedrooms I've seen, and it took some creative work to stick two cribs in
the kids' room.

I doubt they'll still be living in the city by the end of this year.

~~~
Arizhel
The ceilings are at least 8 feet high, right? The solution is simple: stacked
cribs! You have to think vertically in NYC.

------
CodeSheikh
A whole article on an actual phenomenon.

Allow me to explain in plain English. People born in 1981-1999 are getting
older and moving out of cities. Thus reversing a trend that was never meant to
be ever-increasing.

------
spaceflunky
On the surface, I agree with the author's reasoning that eventually many
millennials will "grow-up" and want suburban homes for their kids with better
schools. And this makes sense because it would follow trends in the past.

However the author is missing a couple key components that lead me to believe
the future will not be like the past. For example...

1.) In the past there were suburbs to move to. For example, in the 80s and
90s, Contra Costa (Walnut Creek, Danville, etc) were being developed as a
viable suburb to SF. However, as far as I know there are no new suburbs being
developed that provide a reasonable commute time or distance from SF.

2.) Of the suburbs that exists, those that are a reasonable commute time from
major hubs are still pretty expensive. Again Walnut Creek maintains its value
quite well. So it's not really a "cheaper option" from the city.

3.) Baby Boomers are living longer and staying in their suburb homes longer,
which doesn't give an opportunity for millennials looking to start a family to
move in. I've long since thought that instead of building new suburbs, we
should be looking for options to move empty-nesters from their 4-bedroom homes
that they don't need anymore. All of my friends parents still live in their
suburban homes because they have no other options for the most part.

4.) Author assumes all millennials are waiting to have kids. (They're not.)

5.) We have plain old population growth to rely on. Cities collapsed in the
past because there were places for people to go and a relatively smaller
population. I strongly feel that we've exhausted a lot of those options while
our population continues to grow strongly (at least in the US). Therefore,
cities will remain full simply because of lack of other options and population
growth (both by birth and immigration).

------
rconti
>Here’s one thing we know: People get older. Another is that people’s
tolerance for entry-level jobs and small urban apartments is highest when they
are young adults.

I'm not clear on why they think entry level jobs result in city living. If
anything, the cost of living makes it seem like it would be the opposite.

------
rwhitman
The history of America is a series of migrations from rural/suburban to city
centers and back again.

Businesses and good jobs start to concentrate in urban downtowns, then the
city gets too dense or polluted or expensive, people migrate for a better life
to raise kids in a commutable distance based on the tech available (street
cars, railways, cars), they go too far for the kids to find a job nearby when
they are of working age, and then the kids move back to the city.. and the
cycle restarts anew.

------
pbnjay
I live/work near two small towns with efforts to "revitalize" their small
downtowns. They're doing a lot of the right things to attract young
professionals, but both of them are investing in small 1-, maybe 2-bedroom
apartments and not apartments large enough for families.

If the numbers are similar even for larger cities then I'm not surprised why
people move out to the burbs - a 1 bedroom apartment gets very cramped with
kids - especially when you don't live somewhere like NYC/SF with enough
parks/amenities around.

------
AstralStorm
Why say millennial when you mean yuppie?

------
edblarney
Millenials are not very young anymore :)

~~~
amyjess
Millennials were born 1982-2004. The youngest Millennials are still in junior
high.

Generations are always ~20 years or so. Gen X was 1961-1981, Boomers were
1943-1960, Silents were 1925-1942, GIs were 1901-1924, etc.

~~~
jarboot
> Millennials were born 1982-2004 What source are you getting this from?
> Looking at wikipedia, a lot of them put the beginning of Gen Z at ~1995-98.
> As someone fitting into this bracket (I don't remember 9/11), I'd say it's
> accurate to loosely define the cutoff for Millennials as somebody who
> remembered 9/11, was in the labor force during the great recession, or was
> socially active during Web 1.0. Gen Z doesn't remember life without the
> internet, grew up on Facebook/Instagram (vs. primarily chatrooms, forums,
> etc.), and didn't have as much experience with desktop computers for leisure
> in leu of phones.

This is just my observation as someone who has seen and is currently engaging
with a spectrum of youth in the school system. Thoughts?

~~~
amyjess
It comes from Strauss-Howe Generational Theory. Strauss and Howe coined the
term "Millennial", so I'll take them at their word for the size of the cohort.
Here's a table from Neil Howe's website:

[http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/timelines/generations...](http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/timelines/generations.html)

And a Wikipedia article with an overview:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory)

Source for Strauss and Howe coining "Millennial":

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/advertising/story/2012-...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/advertising/story/2012-05-03/naming-
the-next-generation/54737518/1)

> "No one knows who will name the next generation," says Neil Howe, who, along
> with his deceased co-author and business partner, William Strauss, is widely
> credited with naming the Millennials, a generation he figures spans from
> about 1982 to 2004.

------
toodlebunions
Eventually they will settle down and move to the burbs.

~~~
jonknee
Will they? Baby boomers are moving into cities too.

~~~
jdmichal
... Because their kids are grown and moved out. So they no longer need the
space suburbs provide and can move closer to the employment and entertainment
available in the city.

------
AllanWrench
Big cities are going to die. For decades, they voted themselves nonexistent
money to prop up corrupt politicians, greedy unions, and provide corporate
welfare. Now it's coming home to roost and the rest of us don't care.

One big datapoint here is the most recent election: Trump won several
_thousand_ counties to Clinton's several _hundred_. This was mimiced up- and
down the ballot and was almost perfectly divided as a cities vs. everyone else
thing.

You cannot escape economic reality no matter what the vote buyers think.

~~~
mratzloff
There are more people in the urban counties than the sparsely-populated rural
counties. Cities are growing and are expected to continue growing. Meanwhile,
rural areas are dying.[0] What reality do you think people are trying to
escape?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_the_Great_Plai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_the_Great_Plains)

~~~
drak0n1c
A few decades from now I can see the trend reversing. If automation makes
living in small to medium sized towns in the country more convenient, lots of
people who currently flock to cities out of economic necessity will prefer a
less crowded life.

~~~
astrange
What kind of automation would make it easier to live in a small town? Do you
mean a post-scarcity/jobless society?

Just having more online services like future-Amazon seems like money would
leave the economy and destroy the town faster than building a Walmart does.

~~~
drak0n1c
I'm not picturing post-scarcity or a hyper centralized form of automation.
It's a possible path for automation to reach a point where it becomes feasible
to allow semi-skilled folks in suburban or rural areas to run a farm,
manufacturing plant, energy, mining or foresting outfit of their own for low
startup and maintenance costs. Especially if human-level AI and human-level
dextrous robotics does not exist yet.

Laborers would have a role to play with exoskeletons, being the eyes on the
ground, and directing the robotic labor. Technicians would maintain the
systems, and managers would organize logistics and resources. And as long as
there is industry, there will be all the other types of supplementary
businesses and jobs that come with a town.

~~~
astrange
The first problem is that zoning and noise complaints won't let you run a
factory in a suburb (but maybe in an industrial district).

The second problem is that globalization and efficiency might mean there is
nothing for the factory to do that anyone wants to pay for.

