New Geography

Tag: Obama’s America

  • America in the Millennial Era

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    Senator Barack Obama’s success in the 2008 presidential campaign marks more than an historical turning point in American politics. It also signals the beginning of a new era for American society, one dominated by the attitudes and behaviors of the largest generation in American history.

    Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, now comprise almost one-third of the U.S. population and without their overwhelming support for his candidacy, Barack Obama would not have been able to win his party’s nomination, let alone been elected President of the United States. This new, “civic” generation is dramatically different than the boomers who have dominated our society since the 1960s and understanding this shift is critical to comprehending the changes that America will experience over the next forty years.

    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 preference for consensus for everything from minor decisions, like where to hang out, and major decisions, such as whether go to war, stems from a belief that every one impacted by a decision needs, at very least, to be consulted about it. This approach will dominate how leaders of America’s primary institutions – from corporations and churches to government at all levels – will be measured in the years ahead.

    Contrast that approach to those of the candidates who struggled in 2008. In her losing run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton presented case for a highly assertive, controversial – if sometimes a bit too strenuous – Boomer style of leadership. She emphasized the value of her years of experience and wisdom. Senator John McCain tried that approach as well during the summer lull, but found it didn’t have sufficient power to overtake Obama in the national polls. He then rolled the dice and asked a Generation-X Governor, Sarah Palin, to help him win voters by emphasizing their mutual belief in the superiority of traditional social values and small government. The Republican ticket has had about as much success with this strategy as Governors Huckabee and Romney did Millennial voters during the primaries.

    To successfully manage the transition to a Millennial era, institutions will need to find leaders of any age far-sighted enough to fully embrace Millennial attitudes and behaviors. They have to give them full reign to makeover the outdated structures they will inherit.

    Millennials, in particular, are ready to take on the challenge. Millennials were taught that if you follow the rules and work hard, you will succeed. As the first generation to experience “always on,” high-speed access to the Internet at a young age, Millennials have confounded the vision of many Gen X futurists who envisioned the Net as a tool to enhance individual freedom and liberty, not as a new resource for community building. Sharing their ideas and thoughts constantly from short Twitter texts, or “Tweets,” to extended, if often amateurish, videos on YouTube, Millennials generate and absorb an overwhelming amount of information. Individual Millennials use this ability to influence their own decisions, and then those of the wider group. If institutions and their leaders want their decisions to have any credibility with this new generation, every institution will need to open its own governance procedures to ensure a level of transparency and fairness that meets the test of Millennial values.

    There have been other times in American history when a “civic” generation like the Millennials has emerged to transform the nation. In the eighteenth century a “civic” generation, called the “Republican Generation” by the seminal generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, created the constitutional republic whose democratic values we celebrate to this day. About eighty years later, an equally “civic” impulse propelled to the war to abolish slavery and extend liberty and freedom to all citizens. And when the last “civic” generation was called upon by its elders to conquer fascism and remake America’s economy in the twentieth century, the GI Generation responded with such fervor and ability that they were labeled the “Greatest Generation” by a grateful nation.

    Now, another eighty years later, it is the Millennial Generation’s turn. Its “civic” revolution draws its unique character from the particular way Millennials were brought up, and their use of interactive communication technologies. We believe the Millennial Generation’s revolution will be just as profound as that of previous “civic” generations. Barack Obama’s victory does indeed mark the end of the late 20th century “idealist” era of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But its significance is much deeper, and likely to shape the nature of the new era the country is about to enter.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics Winograd and Hais are fellows at NDN and the New Policy Institute.

  • Obama’s Marketing Message

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    In less than two weeks, when Barack Obama’s lead in all the polls is likely to be confirmed in the voting booth by the American electorate, millions of words will be written about why he won and how John McCain managed to lose. Unfortunately, marketing executives and corporate leaders have ignored some of the most important lessons from the campaign.

    Obama’s success to date lies in his ability to blend his own persona as a messenger with a unifying and uplifting message that reaches the newest generation of Americans, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. His campaign has mastered marketing through social networks and other Internet-based communication technologies. This “cool” approach defeated the “hot” rhetoric that came from his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, and is likely to perform even more favorably against the more confrontational and traditional campaign of John McCain.

    But Millennials don’t just represent the key constituency behind Senator Obama’s successful campaign but also a key market opportunity for economic growth. Almost one-third of all Americans are in this generational cohort, and even though many of them are still too young to vote, almost all of them influence the daily purchases of the families of which they are a part. Until brand managers and marketing mavens master the art of reaching and attracting Millennials, consumer expenditures will continue to languish.

    CEOs need to learn how to create brands that attract Millennials with something more transcendent than their product’s functionality or characteristics. Corporations will only hit their growth targets if they are willing to change their own message, messenger and media to fit the tastes of this generation.

    A recent study by The Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit suggests this campaign lesson has not yet penetrated the thinking of many in the “C suites” of the world’s corporations. More than half of those executives said they did not currently have a strategy to target or retain this demographic group. In their report, “Maturing with the Millenials”, survey respondents acknowledged the need for new tactics to target the millennial customer, but indicated a lack of readiness to do so.

    For instance, the report found that, “While 44% indicate that communicating the right messages in the right medium and at the right time is critical to their success, the majority have yet to leverage enriched content, peer recommendations and enhanced online experiences as part of their outreach—even though they acknowledge these are among the most effective ways to communicate with Millennials.” This sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton’s advisors Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald on the eve of the Iowa caucuses when they derided the supporters of Obama as looking “like Facebook” pages. When Obama’s Facebook legions came out to vote in droves in the Iowa caucuses they dealt a fatal blow to Senator Clinton’s cause.

    Companies, fortunately, do not have to suffer the short shelf life of failed candidates. They can change their strategies in order to capture an emerging new base. We have seen this with companies that have succeeded with emerging ethnic markets at home and with whole new markets abroad.

    Even though most executives surveyed by The Economist understood that Millennials have specific consumer needs, few have tailored their marketing strategy for this generation. Four out of 10 executives in the Economist’s survey said that Web 2.0 technologies, such as webcasts and online forums, are the best way to serve Millennial customers. More than 80 percent agreed that consumer needs vary by age group, and 42 percent believed that a bigger share of investment should go towards Millennial customers. Yet remarkably, the respondents reported that telephone, e-mail and physical storefronts were the top three ways that Millennials could interact with their company currently.

    The risks companies are taking by not addressing Millennials are great. John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer for Young & Rubicam, details this argument in a new book, The Brand Bubble. His research shows that consumers’ trust in brands has declined by half in just ten years. Instead consumers increasingly turn to nontraditional sources of information, such as search engines and social networks, to determine what they should buy and from whom. That is why any good corporate CEO should check every day what customers are saying about their company on the mushrooming “Why I hate xx” websites that now exist for every major company.

    To restore their brand’s value and regain traction with the buying public, companies will need to reinvent themselves in order to engage Millennial constituencies on Millennial terms and in Millennial media. They will need to learn the art of attracting support from Millennials without appearing to be chasing after it in much the same way Obama did in his campaign.

    One leading-edge private sector example of how to pull off this Zen-like non-effort is Nike’s successful efforts to enhance its brand’s attractiveness by creating online communities of runners. By partnering with Apple it created an application for runners that transfers running time, distance and even calories burned to a Nano so that the results can be uploaded for sharing with others. By building virtual running communities, Nike gave its customers an opportunity to register their individual profiles while receiving content that they can access while running. Nike was able to create its own social network linking people with similar running habits, such as those who run with poodles, to produce a strong bond of affiliation among each member of the group, and from that experience an equally strong sense of loyalty to the Nike brand.

    In 2006, the International Television and Video Almanac pointed out that Americans were being bombarded with about “5,000 marketing messages each day, up from 3000 in 1990 and 1500 in 1960.” Nothing in the trend line for communication technologies suggests this amount of corporate generated content is likely to decrease in the coming decades. Not surprisingly, Millennials can absorb much more information at any single moment than previous generations. But this does NOT mean that they are absorbing information in the same way. To gain the attention and brand loyalty of Millennials, companies will have to turn to non-traditional, online information distribution platforms to create a new message that builds a sense of community and caring around their products.

    The best way to do that is to incorporate a cause or purpose into the reason for buying a product. It may be protecting the environment by going green, or reducing inequality in the world through acts of charity, or demonstrating a commitment to young people by investing in educational institutions, or all of the above. Regardless of the cause, not only did the era of unfettered capitalism end with this month’s financial meltdown, but so too did the days of appeals to consumers based solely on narrow self-interest or conspicuous consumption. Bling is out; doing good is in. Make that your message, and you have a story that will work effectively in the Millennial era.

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

  • An Investment Agenda for the Millennial Era

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    Historians will mark 2008 as the year that started the fundamental political debate that will define America in the Millennial Era. This is not just because Millennials (young Americans born from 1982 to 2003) have propelled the candidacy of Barack Obama but also because their entire civic orientation is now permeating the policy debate crystallized by the nation’s unfolding “financial Pearl Harbor”.

    Clear indications of a shift can be seen in the adoption of the bipartisan bailout proposal and many cases of agreement across partisan lines on what needs to be done now. Both liberals like former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and conservatives such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich agree that America should reinvest in its physical infrastructure. They were equally supportive of the need for the country to invest in human capital through a new educational system that would enable America to compete in the global economy. They each acknowledged the necessity for a health care system that would alleviate an ever-increasing financial burden on American families and businesses. From previously and presumably irreconcilably opposite sides of the political spectrum, Reich and Gingrich sketched out an economic growth agenda they could both support.

    Their conversation demonstrated one critical new reality: the demise of the ideologically driven Baby Boomer era of American politics. Although a stubborn majority within the Republican House minority implored its party to stick to its Reagan-era idealism by voting against the rescue package even the second time around, most GOP leaders, especially in the Senate, recognized that if their party didn’t change its rigid belief in free markets über alles, then as one put it, “Heaven help us” in November.

    Interestingly, October 1929 was the last time the market crashed as dramatically as it did on the day the Republicans first voted down their leadership’s recommendation. That event led to the end of America’s previous idealist era, one that also glorified free markets and attempted to enshrine laissez-faire economics as the end-all of U.S economic policy. What followed was an era of government intervention in the country’s economic well-being and an opportunity-expanding fiscal policy led by the civic generation of its time — the GI Generation. That generation supported policies that cut the share of the nation’s wealth held by its richest one percent from 50% on the day of the crash to 30% in 1949. Today’s civic generation, Millennials, are equally determined to reduce the level of economic inequality in America, which was approaching pre-depression levels before the market dived and investment houses disappeared from the landscape of Wall Street.

    Economic jingoists like Lou Dobbs may celebrate the humbling of the nation’s financial elites, but anger and resentment don’t make good economic policy. Instead, Americans will have to learn to behave like Millennials: finding win-win solutions that work for the whole group. The Millennial generation will create a new paradigm of governmental policy with guidelines for behavior established at the national level, but with implementation left to each individual or local community interacting with others in their peer-to-peer networks to make a choice on how best to comply with those national rules.

    This will create a “patient-centered healthcare system” analogous to the Millennial Generation’s fondness for user generated content on social networking sites like YouTube. America’s educational system will be refashioned with schools run as much by kids and their parents as it is by administrators. Just as Barack Obama’s acceptance speech called for individuals to make their homes more energy efficient and for executives to do the same with the companies they lead, energy and environmental policy in a Millennial era will be linked through policies that provide tax incentives along with moral persuasion from the bully pulpit of the presidency to ensure America finally ends its dependence on foreign oil. America’s role in the world will be to lead other nations in the way Millennials expect leaders to behave: finding consensus for a course of action that gains its power from the unity of the group, not the raw strength of the biggest kid on the block.

    This will require the country to make all types of productive investments. As we enter the Millennial era, America will experience changes as sweeping as any the country witnessed in the 1930s and 40s. If the past is any indication of the future, the Millennial Generation will provide the same level of leadership as America’s greatest generation did nearly eight decades ago. In the process the Millennials will put an end to the Boomer era’s destructive clashes of irreconcilable ideologies.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics published in 2008 by Rutgers University Press

  • Cities, Children and the Future

    By Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill

    “Suburbs,” the great urbanist Jane Jacobs once wrote, “must be a difficult place to raise children.” Yet, as one historian notes, had Jacobs turned as much attention to suburbs as she did to her beloved Greenwich Village, she would have discovered that suburbs possessed their own considerable appeal, particularly for those with children.

    Although some still hold onto the idea that suburbs are bad places to raise children, in virtually every region of the country, families with children are far more likely to live in suburbs than in cities. Nearly all the leading locations in percentages of married couples are suburbs, from Midwestern towns like O’Fallon, Missouri to Sugarland, Texas, Naperville, Illinois and Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

    In contrast, many of the places with the lowest percentages of children are urban centers. This includes many of the most highly touted urban cores such as Manhattan, Boston, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco.

    This is particularly true among more affluent, middle class, educated family households. Despite the rise in the number of children in a few affluent locales, such as the upper east side of Manhattan, most middle class families tend to cluster outside the city core. Even in Manhattan the number of kids falls considerably below the national average after the age of five.

    So the question remains: are families important to the planners, developers and politicians who run our cities? Veteran geographer Dick Morrill wonders if they do. He sees many cities turning their backs on working and middle class families, long the ballast of urban society throughout the ages.

    Instead, many city planners, and urban developers have focused their attention on the growing ranks of the unattached: the “young and restless,” the “creative class,” and the so-called “yuspie” – the young urban single professional. These advocates suggest that companies and cities should capture this segment, described by one as “the dream demographic.”

    The other coveted urban demographic centers on the so-called “empty nester,” largely boomers who have already raised families. Developers, like luxury homebuilder Robert Toll, see a vast movement of such people from the suburbs to the inner city. “We are more hip-hop and happening than our parents,” he explains. “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…”

    Yet although this strategy might work for a handful of cities, childless urbanism may have its limits. There is, for example, little evidence that many empty nesters — outside of the very rich — are moving en masse to center cities. The vast majority seem to be staying put in the suburbs while a considerable group heads further out into the periphery and beyond.

    This leaves the key demographic for cities to remain viable: the young and educated, one group that has shown a tendency to move into center cities. But there’s a problem with relying of ‘yuspies” in the long run — they get older and grow up. Right now, as Philadelphia’s Paul Levy suggests, most young couples leave once they start having children. If cities are to hold on to this population, he suggests, they must address the basics important to families, such as public safety, good schools and parks.

    This issue will become even more pressing in the next few years. As the current and very large millennial generation ages, they will begin to dominate the housing market. From all accounts, they tend to be family oriented. More than 80 percent thought getting married would make them happy, and some 77 percent said they definitely or probably would want children, while less than twelve percent said they likely would not.

    If cities cannot change to appeal to these young people once they enter their 30s and 40s, they will be hard-pressed to maintain, much less expand, the population gains made over the past decade. Once the Millennials are gone, the next generation of young people seems certain to be considerably smaller.

    In this sense, the Millennials represent the future hope for cities. The need to shift the focus beyond the denser downtowns and towards many outlying neighborhoods will become a necessity. These places — think of Queens in New York, South St. Louis or parts of the northwest Philadelphia — may see less glamorous and more “plain vanilla” than city centers but they already possess some of the basic prerequisites needed by family: relatively low density, work areas nearby, neighborhood shopping streets, churches, schools and parks.

    What will happen to the least child-friendly cities over the next generation? Imagine a city with fewer total residences, inhabited by fewer people, although with a significant increase in “luxury” dwellings. In the new urban landscape, high-rise towers for the rich predominate, some of them in refurbished office buildings that formerly employed the middle class. These now become the homes of the “creative class” and the nomadic rich.

    This is a city whose funds come largely from the global economy, but whose needs are cared for largely by low-wage workers who eke out their existence in the city, and reside in outlying areas. Ultimately, such a bifurcated society may limit the economic functions that can be carried out in these places. A small cadre of operatives, including the CEO and some senior staff, may remain ensconced in the glamour zone but companies dependent on a broader array of talent will continue to relocate to less exclusive places, either to the suburbs or to different regions.

    Such pressures have already helped Houston to replace New York and Los Angeles as the nation’s energy capital. In the future a place like Charlotte will continue its emergence and its drive for financial dominance. Charlotte, suggests local real estate developer, John Harris, can compete against an expensive metropolitan region not only at the top levels of management, but across the board. “It’s hard to be a mass employer in San Francisco,” he notes.

    In the end, the elite childless city can be seen as both the culmination of urban development and as a demographic dead end. Unable to lift up outsiders and absorb newcomers, these cities may be able to thrive as high end business hubs and elite playgrounds. But they seem unlikely to absorb more than a trickle of those Americans who may want to move into dense urban places over the coming decades. Instead, this cohort may look to those towns ready and still willing to accommodate families.

    Joel Kotkin is the executive editor of Newgeography.com.

  • Baby Boomers: A Millennial’s Perspective

    The retiring of the vast sect of the population collectively known as Baby Boomers has several economic alarms going off. Due largely to this phenomena, by the year 2030, the number of people in the U.S. age 65 and above will double in size.

    Concerns abound about whether there will be enough Social Security funds to cover retirement and what the impacts on the economy will be with this large group leaving the workforce. While these concerns are real, making an accurate assessment of the future requires going beyond analyzing demographic data by also taking into consideration cultural tendencies.

    The Baby Boomer generation covers an immense swath of the population making it difficult to generalize much about them. If one is to look at the 1960s and ‘70s, the social movements reflected an earnest attempt to manipulate the future into one where peace would be king. The optimistic spirit of the time led a small but influential group of Boomers to join communes and relinquish traditional American values altogether.

    By the time the 1980s rolled around, many Boomers had no problem reneging their oft-stated egalitarian values. Conspicuous consumption became the order of the day and newly christened Boomer parents became preoccupied with gaining an advantage over one another by vicariously living through the achievements of their young children — a notion parodied in the 1989 Ron Howard directed movie ‘Parenthood.’

    Yet, ironically, Boomers still often clung to the values and culture of their youth. Even Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs, who created a technological empire based on marketing of the idea of individuality, cites the use of the hallucinogenic drug LSD as ‘one of the two or three most important things he has done in his life.’

    So now, we have the ultimate irony. Boomers have tended to think of themselves as ‘forever young,’ either in spirit or by heading down to the local Botox clinic, but they are becoming as elderly population. Of course, many will put off the acknowledgement of aging. Often self-defined by their work, many will retire much later or not at all. In addition, with concerns about Social Security, some will continue working in order to support their accustomed lifestyle.

    Not surprisingly, real estate speculators and developers are taking aim at predicting where Baby Boomers will retire. Much has been talked about a mass ‘return to the city’ by empty nesters. The amenities that are offered by a cosmopolitan lifestyle will most likely appeal to some, but the fast-paced nature of the big city — and high prices in the most attractive urban cores — will probably keep the majority seniors out in the suburbs or moving to the countryside.

    Similarly, Boomers generally will avoid living in an ‘old-folks’ home — unless totally necessary. The idea of not being self-sufficient, even in old age, contradicts core Boomer values. Many hope, rather, that their children will reciprocate the years of generous financial support and let them live with them.

    The previous generation has shown that if indeed retirees are to move away from where they have spent the previous years of their lives, there is a propensity to go to where the climate is warm. This leads me to believe that, although both Florida and Arizona, are suffering from the mortgage crisis, these and other warm-weather states will retain their attractiveness. Indeed, the lower prices now offered could spark a resurgence of retirees in the coming years.

    But the main place for aging boomers will be precisely whey are now: the suburbs. While the suburbs are definitely not the same place characterized by Ozzie and Harriet, Baby Boomers show a preference for places where neighborhood and community are of high importance. This would partly explain why suburban college towns, even in states with dwindling real estate values, are showing strong resilience. College towns, despite their transient student populations, have a tendency to foster communities based around the functions and cultural amenities offered by a University. College towns also tend to have ‘traditional’ downtowns that remind Boomers of the kinds of places where they grew up.

    The only sure thing about the Boomers is they are a generation rife with contradictions. They can be seen as the beginning of the postmodern era, where America began the descent from its cultural apex in history. To Boomers, hard work and manufacturing was passé. Largely because their parents had come out victorious in World War II, they started in their early years to think it was party time. Even as Boomers got older and started having children, ridding themselves of platform shoes and polyester suits, they carried on some of their social values. As Boomers enter the next phase of their life, retirement, values — like a quest for independence and a search for authenticity — will continue to inform their choices.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Millennials: Key to Post-ethnic America?

    One of the most widely observed, yet least understood, attributes about the emerging Millennial generation is their ethnic and cultural heterogeneity. While they represent the most ethnically varied cohort in American history—far more than any previous U.S. generation—few social commentators actually agree on what this remarkable demographic detail really portends. Will Millennials usher in a new post-ethnic America—or simply reconfigure some different version of identity politics? Will they carry on the mantle of the civil rights movement—or eliminate antiquated racial-ethnic categories altogether? Are they even cohesive enough as a group to assert any meaningful, broad-based cultural agenda?

    Whatever paths they pave, one thing is certain: Millennials are poised to fundamentally reshape the way America has historically thought about race—and, as a result, will likely reconceive our nation’s own ethnic and cultural self-identity in the process.


    By their sheer numbers, Millennials are already reshaping the nation’s ethnic makeup. Not only do they represent a “baby boomlet” in terms of population size, but according to recent figures from the 2008 Current Population Survey, 44 percent of those born since the beginning of the 80’s belong to some racial or ethnic category other than “non-Hispanic white”. Millennials are revealing themselves to be the demographic precursor to Census Bureau projections showing whites as a minority by 2050. Slightly more than half of Millennials—56 percent—are white (non-Hispanic). Age itself is inversely correlated to diversity levels—the younger in age, the higher the proportion of “ethnic” populations within each age bracket. Contrast these figures to the 28 percent of current Baby Boomers who are non-white, and one begins to see a profoundly different look and hue for future generations of Americans to come, led by Millennials.


    Undeniably, Hispanics are at the forefront of this Millennial diversity. Slightly more than 20 percent of Millennials are Hispanics—twice as large as their Baby Boomer counterparts. Millennials also encompass a significantly larger share of Black and mixed-race folks than previous generations, but Hispanics are the driving force fueling the Millennial-led ethnic demographic makeover. Accelerated Hispanic population growth over the past several decades have provoked dire warnings about the perils of Hispanic immigration—threatening to “divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages,” in the words of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington.

    Yet nothing could be further from the truth—particularly when it comes to Hispanic Millennials. Approximately 86 percent of Hispanics under the age of 18 are in fact born in the U.S. (as a whole, 95 percent of Millennials are U.S. born). Many are the offspring of immigrants, but their birthright is firmly rooted in the United States. Unlike their immigrant parents, this group strongly exhibits a preference for English as their primary mode of communication. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 88 percent of second generation Hispanics and 94 percent of third generation Hispanics are highly English fluent (speak “very well”). Many second generation Hispanics tend to be bilingual, but English dominates by the third generation.


    Broadly speaking, a distinguishing characteristic of multi-ethnic Millennials is their heavily “second generation” orientation (nearly 30 percent are children of immigrants). Since they are more likely children of immigrants than immigrants themselves, the proportion of foreign born Millennials is relatively small compared to their immediate generational forebears: Generation X and Baby Boomers. Foreign-born persons comprise 13 percent of all Millennials (includes all those born since the 80s), but they make up 22 percent of the Generation X cohort (born between 1965 to 1979) and 16 percent of Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964).

    Given their more varied disposition, it should hardly be surprising that Millennials are blurring the color lines that have long-marked previous American generations. According to market research firm Teen Research Unlimited, 60 percent of American teens say they have friends of different ethnic backgrounds. More telling, however, is a 2006 Gallup Poll showing that 95 percent of young people (ages 18 to 29) approved interracial dating—compared to only 45 percent among respondents over the age of 64. Likewise, a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted last year among teens showed that 57 percent have dated someone of another race or ethnic group—up 40 percent from when Gallup last polled teens the question back in 1980.

    Perhaps more astounding is the casual mix-and-match cultural sensibilities of Millennials. Not content to cleave to any single ethnic or cultural influence, they are free to engage in the variety with no restrictions. One example is “Mashups”—entire compositions reconfigured from samples drawn from disparate musical genres—so popular on mp3 players. Millennial choices in popular culture are drawn from a broad pool of influences, and anything can be customized and suited to one’s personal preferences—just as easily as an iPod playlist. Likewise, the aesthetics of Millennial fashion, movies, and video games increasingly reflect a broad range of influences—from Japanese anime to East L.A. graffiti art.

    In my own marketing research and consulting practice, I’ve been able to witness firsthand the eclectic, dynamic nature of Millennials, usually behind a focus group window (our firm focuses on ethnic consumers for a range of Fortune 500 companies). Increasingly, today’s young consumer shun direct overtures aimed at appealing to their ethnic background. Similarly, they tend to discard traditional cultural labels in favor of their own self-created monikers like “Mexipino”, “Blaxican”, “China Latina”.

    As a market segment, Millennials represent a precarious consumer. In the marketing world, they are shaking the foundations of advertising and media. Enabled by technology, they are contributing to a fragmented media landscape that grows ever more disparate and porous. Forced to keep up, advertisers question whether they can ever again rely on traditional media to broadcast messages for a lifestyle characterized by instant text messaging, mobile media, and virtual social networking.

    But beyond the business challenges posed by this growing crop of emerging consumers, the most lasting social contribution of Millennials is not likely the next media or pop culture trend, but how they—by simple virtue of who they are— will redefine race and ethnicity for the rest of America.

    Thomas Tseng is a principal at New American Dimensions, a multi-cultural marketing firm based in Los Angeles.

  • Millennial Values, Involvement, and Social Capital

    “American history carefully examined,” argued political scientist Robert Putnam in his notable book Bowling Alone, “is a story of ups and downs in civic engagement . . . a story of collapse and of renewal.” According to Putnam, the passage of the civic-minded World War II generation from American society has led to deterioration in social capital.

    Putnam defines social capital as “connections among individuals,” and the “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” According to Putnam, the last several decades of the twentieth century, largely coinciding with the rise to preeminence of the Baby Boomers and Generation X, were marked by a huge decline in community involvement and social engagement, which led, by the end of the twentieth century to a “sense of civic malaise,” throughout the nation.

    Since the publication of Putnam’s book in 2000, there has been increased focus on (and criticism of) the concept of social capital in American society. During this period, there has also been a new interest in the latest generation – the Millennials. Born in the last two decades of the 20th century, this new generation has the potential to challenge the previously sacrosanct view of young people as uninvolved and disinterested in civic life, which has become part of the conventional wisdom over the past several decades. This new impulse, when shaped by and combined with their set of unique values, may give the Millennial generation the opportunity to be the force for renewal and change in American society.

    According to research published in 2007 by the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), the Millennial generation is showing signs of potentially emerging as a “new civic generation.” Rates of volunteerism have “rose substantially for young Americans over the last generation and remain at historically high levels.” In addition, the NCoC reports, the Millennial generation has the lowest levels of distrust in government, and while they are still the least enthusiastic age group about voting, they “are more favorable toward citizen-centered politics than Gen Xers or Matures.”

    However, it should be noted that youth voting rates have been going up recently. Millennials are interested in getting involved, however, perhaps not in the same ways as previous generations. Shaped by their vast exposure to technology, and a different set of values inculcated during their childhoods, Millennials are looking for new ways to become active participants in their communities, that transcend simply voting or joining a local organization. According to the NCoC Millennials “lack – but want – venues for citizen-centered politics.” They’re in search of “more opportunities for discussion and civic action.” As a generation, Millennials are in search of a way to make their voice and values heard, in a way that suits their particular sense of what it means to be involved.

    Born in 1981, I am considered a “cusp” Millennial. Born on the demarcation line between the allegedly more skeptical, less involved Generation-X, and the supposedly more civic, upbeat Millennial generation, I had the chance during my college years to observe the entry of the Millennials into the environment of higher education. While there is always some danger in placing too much stock in anecdotal evidence, there was some sense, to steal the lyrics of a song familiar to baby boomers, that “something is happening here, but what it is, ain’t exactly clear.”

    As one Millennial once put it to me recently, we seem to be a “backwards generation.” Echoing those who point to a renaissance in civic culture among Millennials, she noted that our generation seems to embracing older values, and recognizing their importance in a balanced life. However, according to her, Millennials were doing this in their own way, complementing these “old” values with our own, increasingly globalized, green, earth-friendly outlook, while also embracing the use of technology as a major part of our everyday life.

    One thing that is clear is the major influence technology has had upon our values, involvement, and interaction. In 1993, as a seventh grade student, I was introduced to the internet. Soon, much to the amazement of our baby-boomer librarians, I was exchanging e-mails with students from all over the world. They found the concept of instantaneous communication between a student in North Dakota and one in Germany novel enough to merit a write up in the school newsletter!

    To Millennials, use of electronic mediums of communication for political and social interaction has become second nature. It is, to echo Putnam, our means of building social capital.

    However, with this embrace of new technology, has come an acceptance of less privacy in our lives. For example, the amount of information that some are willing to share on social networking sites is often shocking. While it may be a force for opening minds and expanding our boundaries, technology also opens us to others in ways that other generations might find unacceptable.

    Another area reflecting our generation’s need to find new ways to become engaged and involved is our view towards work. There is a belief that work should reflect your values, but at the same time, one must be about more than “just work.” Jobs aren’t seen as a life commitment. The value of a job is measured in what it can contribute to our development as an individual, how it helps us meet our personal goals, and what quality of life it allows us to pursue. Work is not viewed as an end in itself, but as an enabler.

    During my time at university, professors remarked to me on more than one occasion that enrollment in political science classes was up by leaps and bounds. One professor felt that the war in Iraq was the driving force behind this. While this might be important, and may be serving to shape the values of my generation, there seems to be more at play. Trying to stick our involvement in the same frame as that of the Vietnam era boomers seems shortsighted. To my generation, the battles of the culture wars seem to have receded, with a more pragmatic, live and let-live attitude being adopted by many Millenials, who approach problems by looking for consensus. The rise of a politician such as Barack Obama, calling for change based on collective action, has been driven in large part by young people across the country, inspired by such a message.

    Robert Putnam, reflecting on the slow wane in American social culture, prior to the rise of the Millennials, argued that above all else, “Americans need to reconnect with one another.” In its own way, the Millennial Generation is going about this process, expressing its unique values, seeking to develop an identity, and becoming engaged in our communities. Some may view this as constructive renewal and others as destructive change to the status quo. As a member of my generation, let me simply assure you, in language that boomers might appreciate, that while Millennials may have their own way of doing things, the kids are alright.

    Matthew is a Research and Development Analyst for Praxis Strategy Group. A native of Crary, ND, Matthew graduated from the University of North Dakota in 2007 with a master’s degree in public administration. As a student, Matthew’s research focuses included community and economic development, intergovernmental relationships, and public policy development and implementation. He has also collaborated on research studying small business start-ups and challenges facing new entrepreneurs.

    In addition to his graduate degree, Matthew also holds a B.A. in political science and history from the University of North Dakota. Prior to joining Praxis Strategy Group, he served as an intern for the North Dakota Legislative Council, in Bismarck, ND, conducting policy research and support work for legislators.

  • Home is Where the Wi-Fi is: Millennials and a Sense of Community

    The modern day forums for which people are able to express themselves and ‘stay connected’ include the much talked about websites Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, among many others. It seems like not a day goes by where there is not another article discussing the revolutionary merits these websites have on changing the socio-cultural landscape.

    Another hot topic that has been getting an abundance of press coverage lately is that of the so-called ‘Millennial Generation’ – the primary users of these ‘social-networking’ tools. Much of the information reported about the Millennials tends to focus on profiling this generation, born between approximately 1980 and 2003, and how to manage their supposedly fickle and entitled dispositions in the workplace. Yet there has not been much discussion regarding the effect that this generation is going to have on the future of our cities.

    Of utmost importance to the Millennials and their sense of identity are the places in which they reside and have traveled to. In every MySpace and Facebook profile, photos abound showing the user in a plethora of different environments. Recently a viral video called ‘Where the hell is Matt?’ has been making the rounds on the internet. In the video, the young man Matt is shown dancing a jig in every corner of the globe with locals joining him wherever he happens to be. He covers enough ground to make even the most well-traveled Millennials envious. The message of the video is clear: that we are all united on this earth and can connect with each other through the universal languages of bad dancing and the internet. The final cut of the video, edited in a manner which shows each location for only a few fleeting seconds, causes one to wonder if the notion of place is of any value in contemporary society. At the end of ‘Where the hell is Matt?’ we are left with the feeling that the means which enabled Matt to produce and distribute the video are more relevant than the actual places he visited.

    The privilege of mobility, coupled with ‘experiencing’ a multitude of locales, both exotic and domestic, has contributed to Millennials having a complex frame of reference regarding civic milieu. Encouraged by their parents, Millennials will oftentimes attend college in cities far from their home – not to mention the obligatory semester studying abroad and even the possibility of attending graduate school in yet another place. Others choose to join organizations like the Peace Corps that enables them to participate in community service and live somewhere off the beaten path simultaneously.

    Due to the ease of movement and the blasé attitude towards staying put, the city becomes a commodity – another item to be consumed and talked about fashionably at cocktail parties. Whereas migration patterns have traditionally been based on economic opportunity, the ability to choose one’s city based on lifestyle is the equivalent of making a selection from a platter of pastries.

    There is even a growing discourse regarding this concept. Earlier this year, a book titled ‘Who’s Your City?’ by the urban theorist Richard Florida came out touting itself as a guide for choosing which city to live in. Though Florida does factor in considerations like what cities are good for certain industries, the premise still weighs heavily on the idea of the city as a fashionable piece of merchandise for consumption.

    The disjointed and schizophrenic city hopping would lead most to believe that Millennials, perennially insatiable, would be deep in a perpetual state of malaise due to frayed social connections. On the contrary, it is the new geography of communication technology, easy access to email, and the aforementioned social networking websites that has allowed them to stay in contact with their peers no matter where they happen to be.

    The transient nature of Millennials begs the question of where they will ultimately end up settling. With older Millennials now approaching their late 20s, settling down, getting married and starting a family is becoming more of a consideration. Despite all the hype of a return to the inner city, the jury is still out on whether the majority of Millennials will choose to raise families in a part of town where there is a dearth of amenities for children. Though young and single Millennials may have momentary love affairs with the much sought after superstar cities like New York, San Francisco and Boston, the restrictive cost of living coupled with questions of safety and quality of public schools will weigh heavily on their decision.

    Coincidentally, it is the climate of connectivity that will allow Millennials to keep in touch with aspects of city life, even as they move back to suburbs to raise families. Though the desire for a larger living space, a backyard and a clean neighborhood may become more important than being in close proximity to the newest nightclubs and celebrity chef owned restaurants, an interest in civic engagement will most likely not wane.

    One thing Millennials excel at compared to other generations is their ability to distill vast quantities of information – simply because they have been exposed to much more of it. This in turn has made them much more open to diversity – both in terms of culture and modes of thought. The implication here is that if they are to move back to the suburbs, the concept of a ‘suburb’ to them is no longer that of a homogenous place where life is ultimately dull and boring. Some prime examples of this new concept of the suburb can be found on the San Francisco Bay Peninsula with the renaissance of towns like Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Redwood City, where tech companies, both large and small, are in close proximity to many of their employee’s homes. Each of these towns has a thriving downtown, an assortment of ethnic restaurants, and even independent coffee shops and art house movie theaters.

    What exactly does this mean for the future of the big cities? Big cities are definitely not going away – even as Millennials begin leaving to start families. Big cities may no longer have the edge up over suburbs when it comes to diversity, access to information and social cohesion, but the physical form of older cities, including density and architecture, will become a living museum to times before the age of the internet when physical proximity was necessary for commerce and personal interaction. In the future, Millennials will most likely reflect positively on the time when they lived in Manhattan in their 20s and paid $1800 a month for that cramped studio apartment they found on Craigslist. By that time, chances are they may even be encouraging their own children to ‘go out and discover the world’ just like their Baby Boomer parents did for them.