From California Planning & Development Report, by William Fulton:
So, one of the biggest questions in planning and development today – in California and elsewhere – is what accounts for the Millenials’ preferences for urban living and less driving. Is it generational? Or a lousy economy?
“I think our answer is yes,” says Brian Taylor, an urban planning professor at UCLA and head of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies there.
Taylor is one of many academic researchers – most of them, it seems, based in Los Angeles – who are trying to understand one of the most remarkable trend reversals in American history: the end of growth in driving. Since 2007, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has been flat, after growing consistently for a hundred years.
This trend reversal coincided, of course, with the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. But by most analyses, this reversal began before the big recession began in 2008, and it has continued to persist even though that recession is long past. So what’s going on? Are people – especially young people – permanently changing their patterns? Or can they just not afford to drive as much as they used to? …
In the one hand, Taylor said, UCLA’s researchers have found that there actually is a statistically significant relationship between your age and amount of driving you do (not just the amount you personally drive, but the amount of traveling you do in private autos even if others are driving). People born in the ‘60s – now between the ages of 44 and 54 – tend to drive 5% more than average. For people born in the ‘80s, it’s 7% less. And for people born in the ‘90s, it’s 16% less.
On the other hand, the actual number of people engaged in the urban millennial lifestyle isn’t very high – at least according to research reported by one of Taylor’s Ph.D. candidates, Celsie Ralph. … Ralph said that although the urbanistas and the multimodals are growing in number, “the bigger story is what his happening in lowest income. There’s a really dramatic increase in people without cars.” These are not necessarily unemployed poor people. Many are working poor who have low-wage jobs. …
There are, of course, other measurements of Millenial behavior besides VMT. Millenials are buying houses and cars – and getting drivers’ licenses – at a slower rate than their predecessors. These trends may hold over time; after all, habits engrained at a young age often last a lifetime. Or the urban-style Millenials may simply grow into a suburban lifestyle later than previous generations, as many demographers suggest.
But there’s no question that, whatever’s going on these days, it’s not as simple as urbanistas sitting in coffee shops. The two-tier economy and the growing number of working poor – in both cities and suburbs – is an important part of the trend as well.
Of course they’re different. They grew up in a different world than previous generations. What would be strange is if they were the same.