Pub. 3 2018 Issue 3

7 ISSUE 3 2018 Only seven percent of those who took the Harris survey wanted to live in communities where if you don’t drive, you can’t go much of anywhere. work translates into choosing an urban environment where the population density is high but where there are also the substantial advantages that come from living in a place that has a concentration of everything else, too. They also see it as a way of saving money. Having a car doesn’t have to be part of the picture. In fact, 91 percent of the millennials who were surveyed see public transportation as being something that creates jobs and improves the economy of a region. As a result, they are actively looking for ways to decrease their reliance on cars and increase use of public transportation instead. According to a survey that was released by The Rockefeller Foundation and Transportation for America, which is part of Smart Growth America, good public transportation matters. The survey was given to adults between the ages of 18 and 34 in ten U.S. cities between April 2, 2014 and April 14, 2014 during live telephone interviews. The interviews were conducted over land lines and cell phones. Millennials were selected according to age, gender, and ethnicity to form a census-balanced sample. The ten cities were divided into three categories: Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco were classified as having mature transportation systems; Charlotte, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul were classified as having growing transportation systems; and Indianapolis, Nashville, and Tampa- St. Petersburg were classified as having growing cities. Survey results were as follows: • Fifty-four percent of the millennials surveyed said they would think about moving to a city that had public transportation that equaled or was better than the public transportation in their current city. • Sixty-six percent said public transportation is one of the top three issues they would consider when moving. • Eighty-six percent of those living in cities with a mature transportation system said that being able to live and work without a car is an important consideration for them. For those whose cities are developing a good public transportation system, the percentage is 82; for those cities that are still at the planning stage, the number is 77 percent. • Almost half of those surveyed said they would be willing to at least think about giving up a car if the public transportation systemwas good enough, but that percentage is a little deceiving because it depends on where people live as to whether they would be willing to give up regular access to a car or truck. For those with a mature public transportation system, the percentage that still wants access to a vehicle is 27 percent. That increases to 60 percent for cities with developing cities, and 77 percent for cities that currently don’t offer much by way of public transportation. • Eighty-four percent of those millennials who live in cities that don’t have good public transportation options would like to see their cities improve. They are interested in more than just public transportation; they also look at services where people can share cars and bikes, and they like pedestrian-friendly streets. Clearly, the cities that have a mature public transportation system have an advantage over cities that don’t offer the same thing. What isn’t clear is whether the trend will continue. According to yet another survey, one that was conducted for the National Association of Home Builders and was released in January 2015, millennials might be living in the city now, but many of them dream about moving to the suburbs so they can have more space. Some 1,506 people who were born in 1977 or later took the survey, and 66 percent said the long-term goal was to be in the suburbs. Twenty-four percent were interested in living in the country, and ten percent saw living in the center of the city as their long-term as well as short-term preference. Of those who wanted to move, they were dreaming about homes with three or more bedrooms. However, results may have been skewed; those who took the survey had either bought a home sometime in the last three years or were planning to do so in the next three years. It ignored those who are renting now and plan to continue. Another factor to keep in mind is that dreaming is one thing, but making that dream reality is another thing entirely. Millennials, like the rest of the country, got a financial drubbing during the Great Recession, and they are still recovering. Many of them have student debt — a lot of it. Mortgage-lending standards are tighter. Financial resources for many millennials are not as strong as they might have been under different circumstances. And it shows: the homeownership rate in the last quarter of 2014 was only 36 percent. That is the lowest number since the Commerce Department started tracking it, back in 1994, and it is much lower than 43.1 percent, which was the high in the third quarter of 2004. For those who have built a good life in the city, moving to the suburbs might be the long-term dream, but it isn’t necessarily one that they will necessarily act on. After all, if someone’s work and social network is in the city, that person would have to be highly motivated to move.