9 ms·

I don't necessarily think "talent" wants transit. Something that matters to every job seeker is what "home" is going to look like, and being close to transit op

I don't necessarily think "talent" wants transit. Something that matters to every job seeker is what "home" is going to look like, and being close to transit opens up more types of "home" to choose from. Some talent wants the pace of downtown while others want 4 bedroom houses with yards. Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, thereby increasing the talent pool's size.

matchbok 8y ago
Yup. More and more young people have no desire to own or drive cars every day. This will be a huge shift in the coming decades.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Wonder how many young people can spend 45 minutes without looking at their smartphone and how much internet use/addiction is pushing this trend?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    From my vantage point in an express bus on the freeway at rush hour, I can see into cars quite well. It's people of all ages staring at their phones while barreling down the interstate at 70mph. So no, I doubt being addicted to phones is driving Transit use!
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    People have always found things to do on the train: https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/35mm_10292_030d.jpg https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/35mm_10292_030d...
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    I doubt it, the number of high schoolers getting their drivers license is by far the lowest it's been in a very long time.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Because insurance rates for new drivers are perpetually going up, states pass more and more laws with hoops to jump through and the utility it less than it used to be thanks to the internet and smartphones. They will almost all get licenses when they get to a point in their life where the cost/benefit makes sense.
      - zjaffee 8y ago
        I mean getting you're license doesn't mean you will own a car and get insurance, it's certainly a life skill to know how to drive, where many schools are still providing services that people just aren't taking full advantage of.
  - francisofascii 8y ago
    I wouldn't call it addiction. But rather, transit is much more of an enjoyable experience with a smart phone and headphones than 10 years ago when you just had a newspaper.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      I don't even look at the screen. I listen to podcasts, which I was doing ten years ago, but not fifteen to twenty years ago.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    I suspect that, like most things that young people are spending less on, it's due to ever-growing financial insecurity. Interesting application of the avocado-toast argument, though.
- refurb 8y ago
  "Despite being pegged as the generation that shuns owning a car, millennials appear to like buying autos more than their Generation X counterparts did when they were younger."[1] [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars-after-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars...
  - tomtheelder 8y ago
    " We find that Millennials own fewer cars than previous cohorts." [1] "“Millennials have a lower rate of car ownership than previous generations at their age.” [2] "We find that today's young adults do own fewer cars than previous generations did when they were young." [3] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X16305571 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09670... [2] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/demographic-shifts-shaping-future-car-ownership/ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/demographic-shift... [3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308021126_Millennials_and_car_ownership_Less_money_fewer_cars https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308021126_Millennia...
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      Careful with those headlines - the details corroborate the parent comment. Millennials don't own as many cars because they are poorer than their parents were at the same age. Of the millennials that are financially independent from their parents, car ownership is steady or higher (relative to previous generations). See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18560580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18560580
- VLM 8y ago
  The desire is mostly from intense gaslighting in small population areas of the country relatively speaking. Its unlikely the gaslighting would ever work in, for example, rural Ohio.
  - vkou 8y ago
    I've saved ~$6,000 this year in gas, parking, tolls, maintenance, insurance, registration, and depreciation, by ditching my car. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] My employer pays for my bus pas, but even if it didn't, I'd only be spending ~$1,200/year on it. I also dropped $300 on a really nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and $20 on a new umbrella. But, sure, the explanation for that must be gaslighting. [1] Insurance: ~$1,200 [2] Depreciation: ~$1,000 [3] Registration: ~$300 [4] Parking spot: $1,800 [5] Tolls: ~$1,400 [6] Gas: ~$400 [7] Maintenance: ~$200
    - VLM 8y ago
      Perfect example of what I was writing about. By analogy, consider if I cut my legs off, how much money I'd save on shoes, all the cool kids are doing it, my anecdote applies to everyone's situation, and my employer would pay the medical insurance so I'm not sure why non-cool people are walking around with legs.
      - vkou 8y ago
        > Perfect example of what I was writing about. > The desire is mostly from intense gaslighting in small population areas of the country relatively speaking. I assure you, my desire to save money did not come from gaslighting. I understand why other people make other choices, but please don't tell me why I run my life the way I do. You insist that the reason some people are ditching cars is because of irrational gaslighting. I give a single, logical reason for why I have ditched my car. You point at my explanation, and claim that it goes to prove your point. I'm not saying that my dad, who lives 20 miles out of town, and moved ~100 tonnes of cargo in the past two years should ditch his pickup truck. I am saying that there are good reasons for why many urbanites are ditching theirs.
gowld 8y ago
> Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, How is that different from "talent wants transit"?
- mantas 8y ago
  The article seems to imply that "talent wants transit" because they want carless urban life. OP says there's the other side of the same coin.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I think this is a point that's often missed. I've mostly lived and worked in Chicago. I live in the city, and commute by CTA. My colleagues who live much further out in the suburbs, and commute by Metra, often spend about the same amount of time in transit as I do. If there's a story here, it's that the halcyon days when people could efficiently get around a megalopolis on highways are gone, and most the value proposition of those giant self-contained office parks out in the suburbs is gone with it. Which isn't to say that it doesn't make sense to build offices out in the suburbs, just that they better still be reasonable to access from a train station. And that doesn't even necessarily mean "close" - many people in Chicago still have the better part of a mile left to walk after they get off the train. But they have the benefit of infrastructure to support walking -- a mile walk in the city itself is a much less daunting proposition than a mile walk in Naperville.
    - notfromhere 8y ago
      Even with the walk Metra from naperville is faster than trying to fight your way in via 290
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - eldavido 8y ago
      Bay Area resident here from south suburbs. Chicago has some of the best commutes there are. If the Bay Area was more like Chicago (regional rail, roads), we wouldn't have as much hand-wringing as on this thread.
xfour 8y ago
Yea it's a bit the tail wagging the dog or something along those lines. I think the consolidation and clustering of companies into downtown cores or in the case of the FANG, mega campuses causes people to look into ways to have a suburban "america dream house" as that type of housing stock near the downtown cores is either extremely expensive or undesirable.
mc32 8y ago
People also just don’t want to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half. If 101 were as free flowing as it was in the mid 90s the desire for transit would be less but given arteries like 280, 101 in the SF bay area or 95, 90, 93 in the Boston area are perennially clogged the alternative is transit.
- ska 8y ago
  If 101 were as free flowing as it was in the mid 90s ... Assuming you mean bay area 101; I remember lots of people moving just because the commute on 101 was such a mess even then.
  - Apotheos 8y ago
    Might mean the 101 down by LA
    - gammateam 8y ago
      LA has a peninsula that leads into a valley? context clues are strong today
    - mc32 8y ago
      Sorry, 101 in the SF bay area, not _the_ 101 in LA.
- rconti 8y ago
  Meanwhile, we FLY down 101 every morning because reverse commute down the Peninsula into the valley. I don't think the people who complain about CA from what they hear online could even believe the speeds we manage.
  - asavadatti 8y ago
    There is no reverse commute in the bay area anymore. It's uphill both ways
    - 8y ago
api 8y ago
I can't speak for everyone, but I for one hate daily commuting by car. I live in SoCal now and one of the biggest things I miss about Boston (where I lived some years ago) is being able to read a book during my morning commute. I don't mind driving for personal errands or vacations, but for daily commuting transit is much better in so many ways. I find the California car culture obsession to be one of the most idiotic things about this place. It's got some of the nicest weather in the country, so if anything this should be where you want to be walking and outside not crammed into a car huffing exhaust. It's so unbelievably ridiculous.
- camjohnson26 8y ago
  I agree, I own a car but take a commuter train daily to downtown Chicago and it's so nice to catch up on news and drink my coffee instead of swearing at traffic. I still use the car when leaving the city.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Funny. The one thing I miss least about working in Boston is the commuter rail and subway. Now I'm commuting via car to an office just outside I95, it takes less time, is much less stressful, costs $150 less per month and is far more reliable.
  - xapata 8y ago
    > $150 less per month Are you considering the $.50 average cost per mile from car travel -- gasoline, maintenance, insurance?
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Yes. Commuter rail passes are just that overpriced. If I had to pay for parking the costs would be about the same.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      A car has a high fixed cost whether you use it or not. It only costs about $.25/mile in variable costs.
thex10 8y ago
That's an interesting angle that I think makes sense. Though I'll admit I absolutely want transit (as I never want to own or care for a car).
naravara 8y ago
>Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, thereby increasing the talent pool's size. It goes beyond that. Transit enables density that car dependent infrastructure cannot. Now that job security is a thing of the past, people need to live near a high density of jobs so they don't have to uproot themselves and their families when it's time to change gigs. Moving out to far flung areas with only a handful of big employers makes that tough. Changing jobs might mean adding a half hour or an hour to your already long commute. Jobs in transit-rich areas, however, give you a lot more opportunity without having to substantially alter your non-work life to match.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  To add onto this, the rise of double and multiple-income households means that for optimal placement, more often than not you want to be next to multiple transportation options so that all earners have a somewhat reasonable commute time. (It's also, I believe, a factor in why people move less often around the country now; it's hard to find two optimal jobs in any potential destination.)
- souprock 8y ago
  I won't claim it is fun to move, but it hasn't been that big of a deal ever since the US highway system was built a century ago. I've done this a few times, as did my parents and siblings. The advantage is that I have never had to suffer from expensive housing or a long commute. My worst commute was 20 minutes by car, and my current one is 3 minutes unless I walk. For people making this choice, housing is cheaper by a factor of 5 to 10, not even counting the extra land we get. Even if I insisted on staying in one area though, I really don't need the density of jobs found in a megacity. If you fit the local industry well, there are usually several employers doing roughly the same thing.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Moving is easy when you are single. Married with kids though, not so much.

matchbok 8y ago

Yup. More and more young people have no desire to own or drive cars every day. This will be a huge shift in the coming decades.

njarboe 8y ago
Wonder how many young people can spend 45 minutes without looking at their smartphone and how much internet use/addiction is pushing this trend?
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  From my vantage point in an express bus on the freeway at rush hour, I can see into cars quite well. It's people of all ages staring at their phones while barreling down the interstate at 70mph. So no, I doubt being addicted to phones is driving Transit use!
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  People have always found things to do on the train: https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/35mm_10292_030d.jpg https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/35mm_10292_030d...
- zjaffee 8y ago
  I doubt it, the number of high schoolers getting their drivers license is by far the lowest it's been in a very long time.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Because insurance rates for new drivers are perpetually going up, states pass more and more laws with hoops to jump through and the utility it less than it used to be thanks to the internet and smartphones. They will almost all get licenses when they get to a point in their life where the cost/benefit makes sense.
    - zjaffee 8y ago
      I mean getting you're license doesn't mean you will own a car and get insurance, it's certainly a life skill to know how to drive, where many schools are still providing services that people just aren't taking full advantage of.
- francisofascii 8y ago
  I wouldn't call it addiction. But rather, transit is much more of an enjoyable experience with a smart phone and headphones than 10 years ago when you just had a newspaper.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    I don't even look at the screen. I listen to podcasts, which I was doing ten years ago, but not fifteen to twenty years ago.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  I suspect that, like most things that young people are spending less on, it's due to ever-growing financial insecurity. Interesting application of the avocado-toast argument, though.
refurb 8y ago
"Despite being pegged as the generation that shuns owning a car, millennials appear to like buying autos more than their Generation X counterparts did when they were younger."[1] [1]https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars-after-all.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/millennials-like-buying-cars...
- tomtheelder 8y ago
  " We find that Millennials own fewer cars than previous cohorts." [1] "“Millennials have a lower rate of car ownership than previous generations at their age.” [2] "We find that today's young adults do own fewer cars than previous generations did when they were young." [3] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X16305571 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09670... [2] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/demographic-shifts-shaping-future-car-ownership/ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/demographic-shift... [3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308021126_Millennials_and_car_ownership_Less_money_fewer_cars https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308021126_Millennia...
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Careful with those headlines - the details corroborate the parent comment. Millennials don't own as many cars because they are poorer than their parents were at the same age. Of the millennials that are financially independent from their parents, car ownership is steady or higher (relative to previous generations). See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18560580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18560580
VLM 8y ago
The desire is mostly from intense gaslighting in small population areas of the country relatively speaking. Its unlikely the gaslighting would ever work in, for example, rural Ohio.
- vkou 8y ago
  I've saved ~$6,000 this year in gas, parking, tolls, maintenance, insurance, registration, and depreciation, by ditching my car. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] My employer pays for my bus pas, but even if it didn't, I'd only be spending ~$1,200/year on it. I also dropped $300 on a really nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and $20 on a new umbrella. But, sure, the explanation for that must be gaslighting. [1] Insurance: ~$1,200 [2] Depreciation: ~$1,000 [3] Registration: ~$300 [4] Parking spot: $1,800 [5] Tolls: ~$1,400 [6] Gas: ~$400 [7] Maintenance: ~$200
  - VLM 8y ago
    Perfect example of what I was writing about. By analogy, consider if I cut my legs off, how much money I'd save on shoes, all the cool kids are doing it, my anecdote applies to everyone's situation, and my employer would pay the medical insurance so I'm not sure why non-cool people are walking around with legs.
    - vkou 8y ago
      > Perfect example of what I was writing about. > The desire is mostly from intense gaslighting in small population areas of the country relatively speaking. I assure you, my desire to save money did not come from gaslighting. I understand why other people make other choices, but please don't tell me why I run my life the way I do. You insist that the reason some people are ditching cars is because of irrational gaslighting. I give a single, logical reason for why I have ditched my car. You point at my explanation, and claim that it goes to prove your point. I'm not saying that my dad, who lives 20 miles out of town, and moved ~100 tonnes of cargo in the past two years should ditch his pickup truck. I am saying that there are good reasons for why many urbanites are ditching theirs.

gowld 8y ago

> Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, How is that different from "talent wants transit"?

mantas 8y ago
The article seems to imply that "talent wants transit" because they want carless urban life. OP says there's the other side of the same coin.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I think this is a point that's often missed. I've mostly lived and worked in Chicago. I live in the city, and commute by CTA. My colleagues who live much further out in the suburbs, and commute by Metra, often spend about the same amount of time in transit as I do. If there's a story here, it's that the halcyon days when people could efficiently get around a megalopolis on highways are gone, and most the value proposition of those giant self-contained office parks out in the suburbs is gone with it. Which isn't to say that it doesn't make sense to build offices out in the suburbs, just that they better still be reasonable to access from a train station. And that doesn't even necessarily mean "close" - many people in Chicago still have the better part of a mile left to walk after they get off the train. But they have the benefit of infrastructure to support walking -- a mile walk in the city itself is a much less daunting proposition than a mile walk in Naperville.
  - notfromhere 8y ago
    Even with the walk Metra from naperville is faster than trying to fight your way in via 290
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - eldavido 8y ago
    Bay Area resident here from south suburbs. Chicago has some of the best commutes there are. If the Bay Area was more like Chicago (regional rail, roads), we wouldn't have as much hand-wringing as on this thread.

xfour 8y ago

Yea it's a bit the tail wagging the dog or something along those lines. I think the consolidation and clustering of companies into downtown cores or in the case of the FANG, mega campuses causes people to look into ways to have a suburban "america dream house" as that type of housing stock near the downtown cores is either extremely expensive or undesirable.

mc32 8y ago

People also just don’t want to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half. If 101 were as free flowing as it was in the mid 90s the desire for transit would be less but given arteries like 280, 101 in the SF bay area or 95, 90, 93 in the Boston area are perennially clogged the alternative is transit.

ska 8y ago
If 101 were as free flowing as it was in the mid 90s ... Assuming you mean bay area 101; I remember lots of people moving just because the commute on 101 was such a mess even then.
- Apotheos 8y ago
  Might mean the 101 down by LA
  - gammateam 8y ago
    LA has a peninsula that leads into a valley? context clues are strong today
  - mc32 8y ago
    Sorry, 101 in the SF bay area, not _the_ 101 in LA.
rconti 8y ago
Meanwhile, we FLY down 101 every morning because reverse commute down the Peninsula into the valley. I don't think the people who complain about CA from what they hear online could even believe the speeds we manage.
- asavadatti 8y ago
  There is no reverse commute in the bay area anymore. It's uphill both ways
  - 8y ago

api 8y ago

I can't speak for everyone, but I for one hate daily commuting by car. I live in SoCal now and one of the biggest things I miss about Boston (where I lived some years ago) is being able to read a book during my morning commute. I don't mind driving for personal errands or vacations, but for daily commuting transit is much better in so many ways. I find the California car culture obsession to be one of the most idiotic things about this place. It's got some of the nicest weather in the country, so if anything this should be where you want to be walking and outside not crammed into a car huffing exhaust. It's so unbelievably ridiculous.

camjohnson26 8y ago
I agree, I own a car but take a commuter train daily to downtown Chicago and it's so nice to catch up on news and drink my coffee instead of swearing at traffic. I still use the car when leaving the city.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Funny. The one thing I miss least about working in Boston is the commuter rail and subway. Now I'm commuting via car to an office just outside I95, it takes less time, is much less stressful, costs $150 less per month and is far more reliable.
- xapata 8y ago
  > $150 less per month Are you considering the $.50 average cost per mile from car travel -- gasoline, maintenance, insurance?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Yes. Commuter rail passes are just that overpriced. If I had to pay for parking the costs would be about the same.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    A car has a high fixed cost whether you use it or not. It only costs about $.25/mile in variable costs.

thex10 8y ago

That's an interesting angle that I think makes sense. Though I'll admit I absolutely want transit (as I never want to own or care for a car).

naravara 8y ago

>Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, thereby increasing the talent pool's size. It goes beyond that. Transit enables density that car dependent infrastructure cannot. Now that job security is a thing of the past, people need to live near a high density of jobs so they don't have to uproot themselves and their families when it's time to change gigs. Moving out to far flung areas with only a handful of big employers makes that tough. Changing jobs might mean adding a half hour or an hour to your already long commute. Jobs in transit-rich areas, however, give you a lot more opportunity without having to substantially alter your non-work life to match.

bobthepanda 8y ago
To add onto this, the rise of double and multiple-income households means that for optimal placement, more often than not you want to be next to multiple transportation options so that all earners have a somewhat reasonable commute time. (It's also, I believe, a factor in why people move less often around the country now; it's hard to find two optimal jobs in any potential destination.)
souprock 8y ago
I won't claim it is fun to move, but it hasn't been that big of a deal ever since the US highway system was built a century ago. I've done this a few times, as did my parents and siblings. The advantage is that I have never had to suffer from expensive housing or a long commute. My worst commute was 20 minutes by car, and my current one is 3 minutes unless I walk. For people making this choice, housing is cheaper by a factor of 5 to 10, not even counting the extra land we get. Even if I insisted on staying in one area though, I really don't need the density of jobs found in a megacity. If you fit the local industry well, there are usually several employers doing roughly the same thing.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  Moving is easy when you are single. Married with kids though, not so much.