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Does anyone know what percentage of urban dwellers remain in the city for their lifetime? I would imagine this number tracks inversely to the decreasing birth r

Does anyone know what percentage of urban dwellers remain in the city for their lifetime? I would imagine this number tracks inversely to the decreasing birth rate YoY decline (among this same demographic group) in the US. Specifically, I'm interested in the birthrates for the 50-75th income percentile for living in major cities (not metropolitan areas). A couple cursory Google searches hasn't yielded any hard data, but hopefully someone has come across data on this. tldr; I don't disagree with your assumption for decreased ownership for personal transportation, but I don't see this changing for families that live outside the Urban core until decades from now.

rorykoehler 11y ago
I don't have an answer to your specific question but I do know ⅔ of all miles are driven in an urban environment in the USA. Urban is where the money is.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  I believe that's only true if you include suburban miles under "urban", i.e., everything but rural. So that statistic really doesn't speak to karpodiem's comment about city dwellers: > I'm interested in the birthrates for the 50-75th income percentile for living in major cities (not metropolitan areas).
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    Yes suburban is included however I strongly believe that the average suburban dweller will be more than catered for with self-driving taxis once we hit saturation point. During the service growth years it will probably be inconvenient but as soon as we reach maturity owning a car will be the inconvenience.
    - jessriedel 11y ago
      Sure, but I'd agree with karpodiem that this is likely decades from now, i.e., more than 20 years before half of suburban households drop their car for a autonomous taxi service. Computers took over a decade to really penetrate. 10% of people owned a computer 20 years ago, but no uses a self-driving car today. Further, the financial and regulator roadblocks are much larger for cars than computers.
      - rorykoehler 11y ago
        It will take a while but perhaps now that everyone has a smartphone and is used to technology/ understands it's benefits, adoption rates will speed up.

rorykoehler 11y ago

I don't have an answer to your specific question but I do know ⅔ of all miles are driven in an urban environment in the USA. Urban is where the money is.

jessriedel 11y ago
I believe that's only true if you include suburban miles under "urban", i.e., everything but rural. So that statistic really doesn't speak to karpodiem's comment about city dwellers: > I'm interested in the birthrates for the 50-75th income percentile for living in major cities (not metropolitan areas).
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  Yes suburban is included however I strongly believe that the average suburban dweller will be more than catered for with self-driving taxis once we hit saturation point. During the service growth years it will probably be inconvenient but as soon as we reach maturity owning a car will be the inconvenience.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    Sure, but I'd agree with karpodiem that this is likely decades from now, i.e., more than 20 years before half of suburban households drop their car for a autonomous taxi service. Computers took over a decade to really penetrate. 10% of people owned a computer 20 years ago, but no uses a self-driving car today. Further, the financial and regulator roadblocks are much larger for cars than computers.
    - rorykoehler 11y ago
      It will take a while but perhaps now that everyone has a smartphone and is used to technology/ understands it's benefits, adoption rates will speed up.