4 ms·

As a young person that grew up in the suburbs and deeply influenced by the "automobile life"; can confirm you'd have to quadruple my salary before I even consid

As a young person that grew up in the suburbs and deeply influenced by the "automobile life"; can confirm you'd have to quadruple my salary before I even considered moving back to the suburbs and sitting through a driving commute. The false American dream of the oversized house, piles of kids, and picket fence just isn't appealing anymore to a growing population of young people. Life is too short to spend your prime someplace boring.

amyjess 10y ago
As a young-ish person (technically a Millennial, born in 1984) who also grew up in the suburbs, you literally couldn't pay me enough to leave the suburbs. I don't care if you're offering me seven figures; I won't live in the city. I detest noise, grime, and crowds. I like having lots and lots of space all to myself. I worked in the city once; I got sick to death of hobos on the streets shouting at me and demanding I give them money (and then having to listen to them calling me a liar when I say I don't carry cash, which is 100% true), and I got sick to death of working in a tall building where the elevators would break down all the time. Working in the city also had me constantly on edge and worrying that I was going to get gang-raped, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. It's not just me, either. Most of the people I went to college with and still keep in touch with now have houses in the suburbs, and those who don't have houses per se live in two-story suburban apartment complexes. I only know one guy who lives in a more urbanized area (and even then, he's in a mixed-use master-planned development in a suburb), and that's only because he's legally blind and can't drive. A good way to make him angry is to say "you're so lucky you don't have to deal with the hassle of driving"; he will remind people at the top of his lungs that he would love to drive everywhere if he had fully-functional retinas. My friends and I are the kind of people who make fun of hipsters and mock people who are pro-homeopathy, anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, anti-gluten, vegan, Bernie bros, etc. Trust me when I say that an urban lifestyle isn't for us. I think there are a lot more culturally conservative young people than you think. Not conservative in the political sense ("liberal but not leftist" and "Clinton Democrats" apply to me and most of my friends), but conservative in the sense that they want to live a traditional lifestyle.
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  Honestly it's probably that half decade or so making the switch. Different strokes for different folks for sure; but Im fairly sure the cities you describe don't exist in the US anymore, at least on the east coast. You're more likely to die in a car accident than be killed by a stranger in nyc (and the heart disease brought on by the sedentary car shaped life is a far bigger risk factor). Live fast, die young, make bank; that's the counter culture philosophy. A slow death as we watch our homes devalue in the burbs worked for our parents, but there's a growing wave of nihilism attracted to the other life urban living offers.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    While this study was conducted with Canadians in mind, everything about it resonates with that I've seen from American Millennials as well: https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/canadian-millennials-meet-the-6-key-consumer-tribes/ https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/canadian-millennials-meet-the-6-k... "Bros & Brittanys" is, at 32%, by far and above the largest group and described as "enthusiastic consumers". I'd imagine many other "Lone Wolves" (a group I consider myself part of) enjoy the peace and quiet of a suburban environment; I don't like being surrounded by people. I enjoy living an atomized life where most of my social interaction is online. I've actually met some New Traditionalists, too... actually, my legally-blind friend I mentioned before is one of the only people from college I know who's an outspoken political conservative, and his wife is even more conservative than he is. Every Sunday, his wife drives him to church in his rural hometown, and they spend the day with his family. Since he got married, he's only become more and more of an extreme religious conservative. There is also some more evidence showing that younger Millennials are more conservative than a lot of people think: https://www.ketchum.com/pt-br/news/break-ranks-among-millennial-males-18-25-year-olds-are-new-traditionalists-finds-ketchum-study https://www.ketchum.com/pt-br/news/break-ranks-among-millenn... And to be honest, I don't think the urban hipster Millennials are any different from Gen-Xers who identified as slackers and Baby Boomers who joined the hippie movement. As they get older, the majority of them are going to walk away from their countercultures and return to more traditional lives. If you believe in Strauss-Howe generational theory, then once the current Crisis runs its course, Millennials are going to have the same role in the new status quo that the GI Generation had in the 1950s.
shostack 10y ago
Some of it may be the previous generation's "American Dream" (I won't call it false, because it wasn't for them or for many of us whose parents lived it). A lot may also be attributed to getting older and wanting to slow down, start a family, etc. Just ask any parent how much they enjoy SF's school lottery, or inability to let their kids play unsupervised outside for safety reasons, or lack of a back yard. Having lived in a city most of my life, lived somewhere in walking distance of Mountain View, and now live somewhere in the Peninsula that I need to drive from if I want to get anywhere of note, there are definitely tradeoffs. It isn't always black and white. I miss the walkability, but I also love some of the other features of being more removed from the congestion and city centers.

amyjess 10y ago

As a young-ish person (technically a Millennial, born in 1984) who also grew up in the suburbs, you literally couldn't pay me enough to leave the suburbs. I don't care if you're offering me seven figures; I won't live in the city. I detest noise, grime, and crowds. I like having lots and lots of space all to myself. I worked in the city once; I got sick to death of hobos on the streets shouting at me and demanding I give them money (and then having to listen to them calling me a liar when I say I don't carry cash, which is 100% true), and I got sick to death of working in a tall building where the elevators would break down all the time. Working in the city also had me constantly on edge and worrying that I was going to get gang-raped, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. It's not just me, either. Most of the people I went to college with and still keep in touch with now have houses in the suburbs, and those who don't have houses per se live in two-story suburban apartment complexes. I only know one guy who lives in a more urbanized area (and even then, he's in a mixed-use master-planned development in a suburb), and that's only because he's legally blind and can't drive. A good way to make him angry is to say "you're so lucky you don't have to deal with the hassle of driving"; he will remind people at the top of his lungs that he would love to drive everywhere if he had fully-functional retinas. My friends and I are the kind of people who make fun of hipsters and mock people who are pro-homeopathy, anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, anti-gluten, vegan, Bernie bros, etc. Trust me when I say that an urban lifestyle isn't for us. I think there are a lot more culturally conservative young people than you think. Not conservative in the political sense ("liberal but not leftist" and "Clinton Democrats" apply to me and most of my friends), but conservative in the sense that they want to live a traditional lifestyle.

lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
Honestly it's probably that half decade or so making the switch. Different strokes for different folks for sure; but Im fairly sure the cities you describe don't exist in the US anymore, at least on the east coast. You're more likely to die in a car accident than be killed by a stranger in nyc (and the heart disease brought on by the sedentary car shaped life is a far bigger risk factor). Live fast, die young, make bank; that's the counter culture philosophy. A slow death as we watch our homes devalue in the burbs worked for our parents, but there's a growing wave of nihilism attracted to the other life urban living offers.
- amyjess 10y ago
  While this study was conducted with Canadians in mind, everything about it resonates with that I've seen from American Millennials as well: https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/canadian-millennials-meet-the-6-key-consumer-tribes/ https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/canadian-millennials-meet-the-6-k... "Bros & Brittanys" is, at 32%, by far and above the largest group and described as "enthusiastic consumers". I'd imagine many other "Lone Wolves" (a group I consider myself part of) enjoy the peace and quiet of a suburban environment; I don't like being surrounded by people. I enjoy living an atomized life where most of my social interaction is online. I've actually met some New Traditionalists, too... actually, my legally-blind friend I mentioned before is one of the only people from college I know who's an outspoken political conservative, and his wife is even more conservative than he is. Every Sunday, his wife drives him to church in his rural hometown, and they spend the day with his family. Since he got married, he's only become more and more of an extreme religious conservative. There is also some more evidence showing that younger Millennials are more conservative than a lot of people think: https://www.ketchum.com/pt-br/news/break-ranks-among-millennial-males-18-25-year-olds-are-new-traditionalists-finds-ketchum-study https://www.ketchum.com/pt-br/news/break-ranks-among-millenn... And to be honest, I don't think the urban hipster Millennials are any different from Gen-Xers who identified as slackers and Baby Boomers who joined the hippie movement. As they get older, the majority of them are going to walk away from their countercultures and return to more traditional lives. If you believe in Strauss-Howe generational theory, then once the current Crisis runs its course, Millennials are going to have the same role in the new status quo that the GI Generation had in the 1950s.

shostack 10y ago

Some of it may be the previous generation's "American Dream" (I won't call it false, because it wasn't for them or for many of us whose parents lived it). A lot may also be attributed to getting older and wanting to slow down, start a family, etc. Just ask any parent how much they enjoy SF's school lottery, or inability to let their kids play unsupervised outside for safety reasons, or lack of a back yard. Having lived in a city most of my life, lived somewhere in walking distance of Mountain View, and now live somewhere in the Peninsula that I need to drive from if I want to get anywhere of note, there are definitely tradeoffs. It isn't always black and white. I miss the walkability, but I also love some of the other features of being more removed from the congestion and city centers.