“One-third are willing to pay for the ability to walk,” “They don’t want to be in a cookie-cutter type of development. ...The suburbs will need to evolve to be attractive to Gen Y.”
My gen X friends said the exact same thing back in 1991:
1) Guess what...most are married, live in cookie cutter developments and drive everywhere.
2) others had enough of the rat race,went off the grid and moved into the country where it was SAFER to grow their weed...
3) Some moved overseas
4) I’m the LAST of a group of friends who still lives in a mostly Urban area.
Ever notice, they loudly proclaim that they won’t just be cookie cutter people,,,,, while they march to the same train stations, from the same walking neighborhoods, where they all live in the same smallish condos, where they all think alike? Its really kinda comical.
Same argument has been made since the 70s. Remember when Brownstone-like townhomes and condominiums were the rage alternative to gated community HOAs?
The big environmental kick of the 90s was to make the US more European, build communities in suburban America like urban NYC or environmental policies of San Francisco Bay Area.
Urban sprawl became the next buzzword, but it wasn’t land development which promoted urban sprawl as much as it was the codification of all building codes throughout the US, leaning towards global policies.
Local policy was easier to implement by simply accepting national and international codes, instead of thinking them through on their own.
Now planning commissions in 4000 person townships have spread their borders by 50 miles to the next township in rural desert, but mandate a residence may not be used for business, when paupers barely have enough money to build a shack, unless they sign a 30-40 yr mortgage and relinquish freedom to an outside third parties, whose controlling interests are overseas.
Eerily similar to colonial life under the Empire.