Posted on 11/24/2006 10:47:14 PM PST by seacapn
ATLANTA, Nov. 24 — Some cities will do anything they can think of to keep young people from fleeing to a hipper town.
In Lansing, Mich., partiers can ease from bar to bar on the new Entertainment Express trolley, part of the state’s Cool Cities Initiative. In Portland, Ore., employees at an advertising firm can watch indie rock concerts at lunch and play “bump,” an abbreviated form of basketball, every afternoon.
And in Memphis, employers pay for recruits to be matched with hip young professionals in a sort of corporate Big Brothers program. A new biosciences research park is under construction — not in the suburbs, but downtown, just blocks from the nightlife of Beale Street.
These measures reflect a hard demographic reality: Baby boomers are retiring and the number of young adults is declining. By 2012, the work force will be losing more than two workers for every one it gains.
Cities have long competed over job growth, struggling to revive their downtowns and improve their image. But the latest population trends have forced them to fight for college-educated 25- to 34-year-olds, a demographic group increasingly viewed as the key to an economic future.
Mobile but not flighty, fresh but technologically savvy, “the young and restless,” as demographers call them, are at their most desirable age, particularly because their chances of relocating drop precipitously when they turn 35. Cities that do not attract them now will be hurting in a decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Excellent question.
Wonder if the statistics exist that could answer that question?
I suppose you could go to the Census Bureau to get an estimate of the number of women in the 20-40 age range [i.e. the child bearing years], then go to the CDC and/or the state boards of health to get the number of live births for the county which hosts the city [and the surrounding counties which host the associated suburbs, which probably have better hospitals], and then use the first number as the numerator and the second number as the denominator of a fraction that tried to represent the fecundity of the young women of the city [and its suburbs].
Would be some work, but it should be do-able.
Dude, it sounds like you might have the material there for a novel or a movie script.
You ever tried your hand at writing pulp fiction?
This is a story about the pussies that survive only because there are people who fight and die to protect their sorry asses.
Let's see...If I was a recruiter for a big corporation where would I go looking for talent?
To a cool big city where I can find a 27 year old, with tatooes up to his armpits, a ring hanging from his tongue, who just got in at 6am after a headbanger's ball and lives with two dogs and parakeet in a rented former foundry.
Or might I go to exurbia to find a 27 year old who owns a home with mortgage, has two small children, attends church on Sunday and wears a suit and tie.
Let's see...If I was a recruiter for a big corporation where would I go looking for talent?
It would depend where your headquarters was located.
Bump. There are some GREAT posts in this thread.
Are you still seeing it? Or do you live somewhere other than ATL, and imagine it's still happening yearly?
They must have moved it to Galveston.
because some of us don't want to waste our weekends mowing one or even worse five acre lots of grass.
Interesting information. Las Vegas should probably be left off this list as a "destination" city in the context of this discussion, though. I read an article recently about LV -- that some astonishing portion (like 50% or more) of the people who move to Las Vegas live there for less than six months.
LV can be extraordinarily boring.
I can safely say I love sprawl for that reason. Work in the city, live in the outer suburbs.
The city proper has virtually the same population it did 50 years ago, but the metro population has quadrupled.
I like the growing mid-sized cities better than the big ones or the small towns.
So is it safe to say that some people like big cities and some people like the small cities or suburbs?
I'm glad they still make chocolate and vanilla and stawberry...
That's why John Deere makes tractors. Takes a few minutes. Or you can hire someone to do it.
I'll skip paying for a tractor and stay in the city. No yard to pay someone to take care of regardless of size.
They have already cut the school week down to the shortest in the state. Portland has it's own "temporary" income tax 1-2% on top of the 8.5% State tax.
It may well be a death spiral forming. Worth keeping an eye on.
How come multiple generations of adults living together was okay on the Waltons, but not next door?
Living in the city and living in the burbs are two different things. A good city neighborhood is like a small town, except that it's likely to be more walkable and has major urban assets a short hop away. The burbs, however .... I'll just say that I can't imagine spending three hours a day in my car.
I live in South San Jose, but when I was single I thought it would be fun to live in San Francisco. You could live there and walk to restaurants, night clubs, and shopping.
I didn't work in San Francisco, and I never wanted a long commute. I had friends that lived up there and enjoyed it.
However, I would never buy a place in a city, and I would never live in a city like that.
I would actually like to move to a much smaller place and have a large lot.
I like having neighbors, but not as close as they are right now. I like not having lots of traffic. My kids can play in the street, and I don't have to worry about them getting hit by cars. I also live near an undeveloped hill that has deer that are fun to watch. We also live near a bike/walking path that is connnected to lots of parks. It's loads of fun.
One of my 10 year old twin daughters loves San Francisco, and the other one would love to live in a small town where she can walk everywhere.
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