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  • 250 Square Feet Condos in San Francisco

    In this famously expensive city, one developer has a plan: Build 250 square-feet condos for singles who can then move on up. The 98 units will sell from $279,000 to $330,000.

    Yes, it sounds like a glorified closet, but you have to admire Hauser Architects’ sense of practicality for these Hong Kong-style apartments. The huge towers going up on Rincon Hill and South of Market are only meant for those earning well into six figures. It’s refreshing that someone is actually building housing not meant for the super-wealthy. It could also serve as a harbinger of housing to come for single middle-class urban dwellers.

  • Bye, Bye Boomers, Not quite

    By Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill

    They may be losing out politically to oldsters and youngins, as Morley Winograd and Michael Hais suggest, but Boomers will have a profound impact on our country’s demography and economics for decades to come.

    In some ways this is as much a matter of numbers as anything. There are lots of Boomers and until the Millennials start entering their 30s in the middle of the next decade, they will retain a massive say in what kind of places and regions will thrive.

    One thing Boomers can be counted on: to disappoint many expectations cast on them. In the 1960s the punditry was full of expectations that Boomers would reject the suburbia settled en masse by their parents. They would be different, returning to the land or resettling the urban frontier. Instead the Boomers ended up turning suburbia into the nation’s dominant geography.

    Now that the Boomers are aging, once again the punditry predicts they will once again reshape the landscape. Maybe so, but not as quickly and not in ways widely bandied in the media and some developers.

    One predominant myth is that Boomers, as they age, will desert the boring burbs and rediscover the allure of a fast-paced, defiantly “youthful” lifestyle. Suggests luxury homebuilder Robert Toll:

    We are more hip-hop and happening than our parents.
    We want the sophistication and joy and music that
    comes with city dwelling, and doesn’t come with
    sitting in the burbs watching the day go by while
    puttering, painting, reading, writing, making flies
    for fishing, customizing your own golf clubs,
    stringing your own tennis racket, tending your tropical
    fish.


    It makes good copy for journalists, and spurs wishful much thinking among urban developers. The reality is a different matter. Overall, downshifting Boomers seem to prefer what one critic calls “the bland American dream”; barely two percent want to move to experience the “excitement” of a dense urban area. And, like their younger counterparts, aging Americans have remained tethered to their cars; less than ten percent of seniors over 65 walk, bike or take public transport as their primary means of getting around. “Suburbanites,” summarizes Syracuse University economist Gary Engelhardt, “like the suburbs.”

    Indeed instead of heading to dense cities, our analysis of data — -and the findings of the homebuilding industry — is that most Boomers, as University of Arizona gerontologist Sandra Rosenbloom suggests, are “aging in place.” Rather than head off anywhere far away, most will want to stay close to their personal networks, offspring, churches or clubs.

    Family ties are perhaps the biggest factor. One quarter of Generation Xers, for example, still receive help from their parents, as do nearly a third of Millennials. As many as forty percent of Americans between 20 and 34 now live at least part-time with their parents, an option that is likely to become more commonplace in areas where home prices are particularly high.

    As a result, older Americans will remain a far more active force in the economy — and in their children’s lives — than might have been the case a generation ago. Most plan to stay near where they currently live, and rate being close to family members as a major factor in their decision. Contrary to the celebration of “independence” created by marketers and advocates of the “slimmer” family, most consider themselves to be about as concerned with passing on an inheritance to their children as their parents were.

    This does not mean that eventually some aging Boomers will not choose to move into smaller residences. But to lure them, successful communities need to develop cultural amenities and diverse stores and restaurants, while offering a secure environment. Nine of the top ten active-adult communities put up recently were located in the suburbs. “They don’t want to move to Florida and they want to stay close to the kids,” notes Washington area developer Jeff Lee. “What they are looking for is a funky suburban development — funky but safe.”

    It turns out the most attractive options for aging populations are quieter ones. Only a small slice of the aging population seeks electric excitement; at older ages, most people seek repose, familiarity and general As Canadian demographer David Foot has pointed out, as people age, they tend to favor quieter activities, such as bird watching or gardening; “eco-tourism” jaunts nearby seems more attractive than bar-hopping in the fast-paced city. This tendency will extend increasingly to non-traditional populations, including childless couples and the gay community, many of whose members also apparently share the general desire for a quieter life as they age.

    Indeed, if you are looking for a big movement among aging Boomers — now roughly 55 to 64 — the best place to look will be amenity-rich smaller towns and cities such as Douglas County, Colorado and certain counties in Idaho, in the Berkshires of New England, and even in parts of Alaska. Such counties, according to the US Department of Agriculture, grew ten times faster than other rural counties.

    In many of these counties’ central towns, old Main Streets are already being restored; as downshifting seniors move in, this process should accelerate rapidly. College towns in particular could win out — something they will need to do as the number of teenagers begins to drop dramatically in the next decade.

    Although not in ways foreseen by urban boosters, the Boomers still could have a major impact on our future communities. In many places, they could become a bulwark of community organizations and churches. They certainly will have more time to devote themselves to quality of life issues, including environmental activism, education and historic preservation.

    And as many may still be working, they could contribute to economic growth, through their greater financial resources and accumulated skills. Expect many Boomers to work well into the 60s and 70s — using their spare bedrooms to accommodate home offices and assisting younger entrepreneurs develop their businesses. Many will keep working because they need the money; others may still in the game for the love of it.

    In the end the Boomers could play a less heroic, but still very positive role in the evolution of American communities. Even as the Millennials mature into dominance — and the Xers assert their shot at political leadership — the Boomers could offer the financial wherewithal, the skill and, perhaps, most surprising of all, the wisdom required by a rapidly evolving, and expanding, society.

  • Top States for Baby Boomers migration, 2005

  • Who Moves, Number of Movers by Age, 2005

  • U.S. Population Projections by age, 2008 and 2030, Baby Boomers and Millennials

  • U.S. Population Distribution by Age, 2007, Baby Boomer Generation

  • Bye Bye Boomers

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    The formal ratification of the outcome of the primary elections at the party’s national conventions marks more than just the beginning of a new era in American politics. It signals the demise of Boomer generation attitudes and beliefs as the dominant motif in American life.

    After 16 years of Baby Boomer presidents, first Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush, primary voters in both parties rejected quintessential Boomer ideologues (Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee) in favor of candidates who were explicitly opposed to Boomer-style politics. Although Barack Obama is chronologically a very young Boomer, he signaled, in a March 2007 Selma, Alabama speech, his desire to break with the divisive politics of an earlier, “Moses” generation. Instead he embraced the beliefs of this century’s “Joshua” generation, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. For his part, John McCain is a member of the older Silent Generation, born between 1925 and 1945 and has constantly exhibited that generation’s style, positioning himself as a political maverick who attempts to bridge ideological gaps to achieve larger goals.

    But the big break is with the Boomer generation. Unlike Boomers, Millennials have been raised to play nice with each other and find win-win solutions to any problem. Boomer (and Generation X) parents sat toddler Millennials in front of the television set to watch “Barney” and absorb each episode’s lesson of self-esteem and mutual respect (even as they bolted from the room, sick from the sweetness of it all). With the show’s “my friend is your friend and your friend is my friend” lyrics hard wired into their psyche, Millennials have a strong desire to share everything they do with everyone else.

    The arrival of social network technologies enabled Millennials to create the most intense, group-oriented decision-making process of any generation in American history. This generation’s need to make sure the outcome of both minor decisions, like where to hang out, and major decisions, such as whether go to war, reflects both a penchant for consensus and team work which will become the future benchmarks for American political life.

    In contrast Senator Clinton made a definitive—if sometimes a bit too strenuous—case for a Boomer style of leadership in her primary campaign, emphasizing the value of her experience and wisdom. Governors Huckabee and Romney’s approach, for their part, stridently insisted upon the need to preserve the superior set of traditional values .

    Now it’s time to encourage the Boomers to take their well-deserved retirement, and offer the opportunity for newer, Gen X leaders and their values. This may be difficult for many Xers, who will need to overcome their own lack of understanding of, and in some cases outright disdain for, the youngest generation. Humorists Steven Colbert and John Stewart, both quintessential Gen Xers, recently demonstrated their risk-taking mindset by mocking Millennial attitudes as demonstrated by Senator Obama’s rock star reception in Berlin. The failure of their Millennial audience to laugh at the joke, or buy into Senator McCain’s attempt to suggest it somehow made Obama less qualified to be President, demonstrates the challenge the Millennial zeitgeist will pose for those seeking to become the nation’s leaders.

    The change from Boomer to Millennial style is already becoming evident in other areas of American life as well. At the 1968 Olympics, as the Boomer inspired, idealist era began, African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists in the men’s 200-meter race, raised a black-gloved fist in a protest for black power as the Star Spangled Banner was played to celebrate their victories. Forty years later, Jason Lezak, captured the values of the new Millennial era as he explained how he was able to swim the fastest 400-meter freestyle leg in history to bring gold to his teammates. “It’s the Olympics and I’m here for the USA . . . .I got a supercharge and took it from there. It was unreal.” Lezak was joined at the award ceremony by his Millennial teammate, Cullen Jones, only the second African-American to ever win a gold medal in swimming. In sharp contrast to Smith and Carlos forty years earlier, Jones happily celebrated the victory of his team and country.

    Ultimately the 2008 election will turn on which candidate can bring these new attitudes and beliefs to bear on the number one issue facing the country—the economy. Unlike Boomers, whose focus was on economic growth to support their workaholic personalities, Millennials are more concerned about economic inequality and believe government has a key role to play in bringing about a greater degree of economic fairness. Almost 70 percent of Millennials express a preference for “a bigger government that provides more services,” compared to only 43 percent of older generations who agreed with that statement.

    Connecting the current sorry state of the American economy and its dependence on foreign oil with the other favorite concern of Millennials, global warming, is an even better way to win this generation’s support on economic issues. Whoever is elected this year will need to reshape America’s economy in line with Millennial expectations of inclusiveness and fairness as dramatically as FDR’s New Deal created a new economic framework for the Millennial’s generational forbearers, the GI Generation.

    The Broadway musical, “Bye Bye Birdie,” captured the end of the conventional era of the ‘50s, as the onslaught of Rock n’ Roll pitted child against parent and ushered in an age that celebrated rebellion in all its forms. The confrontations between Boomer “Meathead” (Michael Stivic) on “All in the Family,” with his tradition bound father-in-law, Archie Bunker, captured his generation’s desire to overturn the establishment using the power of ideas to persuade the recalcitrant of the error of their ways.

    Now it’s time to realize new values are ascending. Millennials generally get along great with their parents and celebrate the wholesome values of “High School Musical,” where boys and girls of all types come together to defeat those that seek to win only for their own personal ambition. Those nominated in the next two weeks at their party’s convention should heed this lesson. To gain the presidency, the winning ticket will have to appeal to the Millennial sense of pride and teamwork in meeting the challenges the country faces.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics published by Rutgers University Press.

  • aullman

  • Chicago Ascendent?: A Questionable Proposition

    Recently, Chicago-based lobbyist and election attorney Dan Johnson-Weinberger wrote a rather positive blog entry for The Huffington Post. The subject matter was how great a place Chicago is. Here’s a quote:

    Proudly multi-racial, ruthlessly pragmatic, open to hustling newcomers and somewhat audacious, Chicago’s unique culture is ascendant.

    The most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates suggest something not mentioned in the Johnson-Weinberger puff piece. Since the year 2000,Chicago is the only city of America’s top five largest to lose population. While New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix all gained population: Chicago lost over 59,000 people. From 2000 to 2007, Chicago had a greater population loss than Detroit’s decline of 39,000. If things are moving in Chicago, it’s not all “positive.”

    Take crime. According to the Chicago Tribune, the murder rate in Chicago is ascending:

    Violent crime continued to rise in Chicago after a deadly July in which 62 people were killed, according to unofficial numbers provided by a police source.

    For the first seven months of 2008, murders rose by 18 percent over the same period in 2007 and by nine percent for the same period in 2006. According to internal police data, 291 people were killed from January through July, up from 246 in 2007 and 266 in 2006.

    Few cities can claim over one murder a day.

    Overall, despite the political success of Senator Obama, 2008 has been a rather difficult year for Chicago. The city is currently in an economic recession. Mayor Daley estimates a budget shortfall of $400 million. Government worker layoffs are being proposed. Mayor Daley is throwing around numbers of 1000 to 2000 workers. Some suggest the number may reach 5000 to 7000 due to shrinking revenues. The revenue shortfall may even lead to Chicago’s credit rating being downgraded.

    One key reason for the slowing down of revenues lies with the reduction of new real estate transaction. Sales tax revenues are also slowing. Recently, Cook County raised the sales tax rate. Chicago now has the highest sales tax rate in the country at 10.25 percent. In downtown Chicago, which is designated as a special taxing district to fleece tourists, the sales tax rate is 11.25 percent. Higher oil costs have cut down on air travel which has affected the tourist trade in downtown Chicago.

    On top of all this, corruption, particularly relating to the Mafia, continues to thrive. As former Chicago criminal defense attorney Robert Cooley has stated, no amount of accomplishment or image-boosting can reverse this reality. A “high ranking made member” of the Chicago Mob was elected to Chicago’s City Council for 23 years. Today, in 2008, the FBI is still dealing with the fallout of this. No wonder the FBI has its largest public corruption squad located in Chicago. For the rest of the country to view Chicago as something positive or “progressive” reveals the ultimate triumph of good PR and hype over a far grittier reality.

  • Gazing Into A Post-Ethnic Future

    Last week’s updated Census projections showing whites becoming a minority by 2042 – far more rapidly than previous estimates – is sure to turn up the heat in some quarters of American society. While it no doubt re-ignites predictable dooms-day scenarios among anti-immigration activists who warn about the “death of the West” and the gradual erosion of American values, it may also give some average Americans pause as well.

    Why? Because when one envisages the average American, it is highly likely they are picturing someone with Anglo features rather than one with the skin tones and hues of Hispanics, Asians, or some exotic admixture of different ethnicities. Even as the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama and the rising global prominence of star athletes like Kobe Bryant and Lebron James at this year’s Olympics are changing these perceptions, all-American looks, for the most part, is still equated with ‘white’ for most people around the world.

    And who is to argue? After all, approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population is currently white. But according to new Census Bureau figures, this image is set to undergo a fundamental makeover in just a single generation. To summarize:

    • By 2050, whites will decline to just 46 percent of the U.S. population. At that time, they will also constitute the vast majority of persons over the age of 85 years — a population that is set to triple to 19 million. Demographers refer to this as the “graying of America.”

    • At the same time, the “browning of America” is marching forward in full force. Both Hispanics and Asians are scheduled to double their share of the population by mid-century — up to 30 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. A majority of that share in growth will originate from births, and not immigration.

    • These two countervailing forces — “graying” and “browning” of the country — are impelled by widely disparate fertility levels between whites on the one hand, and Hispanics on the other. While the average American white woman is now producing 1.8 children — a steadily declining figure over the past two decades — the average fertility rate for Hispanic women is 2.3.

    It would be unwise to jump to too many firm conclusions based on these figures — especially if one underestimates the power and role of assimilation. Historically, numerous forecasters, pundits, and commentators have made the error of adhering to a fixed, static notion of culture. Benjamin Franklin once famously warned that German immigrants threatened to turn Pennsylvania into “a colony of aliens” and cautioned they would “never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can adopt our complexion.” Likewise, an annual report written in 1892 from the U.S. Superintendent’s Office of Immigration cautioned that rising immigration levels would bring about “an enormous influx of foreigners unacquainted with our languages and customs,” thereby forming a “new undesirable class.”

    Of course the Jews, Italians, Irish and Germans who comprised the “third great wave of immigration” at the turn of the 20th century did not develop into America’s underbelly as predicted. On the contrary, most of them eventually weaved into the fabric of mainstream society—epitomizing the famous metaphor used to describe their integration: the American “melting pot”.

    Moreover, immigration projections themselves are often based on precarious assumptions, many of which do not account for the malleability of culture, particularly when it faces the compelling force of assimilation. To illustrate, back in 1990, California’s demographers forecasted a major population surge due to assumptions made about Hispanic immigration and birthrates. At the time, the fertility rate for Latina women in the Golden State was 3.4 babies.

    By 2005, actual population figures demonstrated the state had grossly miscalculated its population estimates. The state’s bean counters had wrongly assumed that high birthrates among Latina mothers would continue to persist across generations. But they didn’t. Fertility rates dropped to 2.6 babies overall among Latina moms. Declines in fertility rates were a direct result of acculturation: as Hispanic women acculturated, they began to adopt upwardly mobile lifestyles that reflected their increasingly mainstream attitudes. For many second-generation Hispanic women, rearing many children simply did not fit into the lifestyles they aspired to have.

    In study after study, the data tracking of immigrants show that the longer they remain in the U.S., the better they do economically. Unemployment levels drop dramatically while income earnings increase considerably the longer immigrants have been in the country.

    Nevertheless, the true gauge of immigration’s genuine impact is generational — it rests among the children and offspring of immigrants themselves. Historian Oscar Handlin once wrote: “the history of America is the history of immigrants’ children.” A study by the Rand Corporation in 2005 showed that educational progress among three generations of Mexican Americans — from the first generation immigrant all the way to their grandchildren — gradually increases with each succeeding generation group. This progress is the same or greater than those achievements made by those previous European immigrants who came to the U.S. during the early 20th century.

    These results are supported by the research conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center. According to Jeffrey Passel, a researcher at the institute, “We have a tendency to romanticize the experience of past immigrants. Yes, there was progress. But the real progress came with their children and grandchildren.”

    In light of last week’s new revised Census forecast, what are we to gain from all this? Just that despite the fact the “average” American may have a much different “look” or physical appearance in 2042, they will still be firmly, recognizably — and very proudly — American.

    Thomas Tseng is Principal and Co-Founder of New American Dimensions, a market research and consulting agency based in Los Angeles.