local champion said:
If you are spending more time at bars and restaurants than at work you really need to get your priorities straight.
thanks dad





Walker said:
Who said anything like that?
No one. However, by living where you play instead of where you work, I would assume you spending more time playing.
Anyway, what this conversation truly shows is people live in the central city for all sorts of reasons. I am definitely one of those "burb haters" in that I do not even like driving out to them for anything (though I find myself unfortunately doing it often). I prefer to live in the central city no matter where I am living, but first and foremost to me is convenience. If the burbs were more convenient I would live there, but it just so happens that the city of Columbus is more convenient for me. I would assume most people live in the central city for the same reasons, but like Walker pointed out many live there for nightlife, etc. Good information for a marketing firm as you obviously can't pin down a central city resident as any certain type of person.
local champion said:
I still don't get it.
Allow me to rephrase/expand:
Many people place more priority on being able to walk to a restaurant, a bar, a store or a coffee shop or grocery store, even if those are things that are less frequent destinations than work. There is a pleasant experience to be had with a short walk to these neighborhood amenities.
If you work at The Limited or Chase or A&F some other suburban office park/campus, you're highly unlikely to walk or bike to work, regardless of whether you live 1 mile from work or 20 miles from work. These suburban office parks were designed to supply ample parking and not to accomodate any other form of transportation. Most are located on busy artery roads with inadequate sidewalks or unsafe pedestrian/biking conditions. Connectivity between suburban office parks and suburban housing developments is often extremely limited by design.
So many people see the options as this:
- Live in an place where you can walk to most everything, except for your drive to work.
- Live in a place close to work where you're still going to have to drive to work, and also drive to everything else.
local champion said:
No one. However, by living where you play instead of where you work, I would assume you spending more time playing.
I'd say that's a highly inaccurate assumption. Living closer to play instead of work is about priorities and preferences, not time allotment.
local champion said:
Good information for a marketing firm as you obviously can't pin down a central city resident as any certain type of person.
They're way ahead of us. ;)
http://www.amazon.com/Live-First-Work-Second-Rebecca/dp/0977874613
Walker said:
Allow me to rephrase/expand:Many people place more priority on being able to walk to a restaurant, a bar, a store or a coffee shop or grocery store, even if those are things that are less frequent destinations than work. There is a pleasant experience to be had with a short walk to these neighborhood amenities.
If you work at The Limited or Chase or A&F some other suburban office park/campus, you're highly unlikely to walk or bike to work, regardless of whether you live 1 mile from work or 20 miles from work. These suburban office parks were designed to supply ample parking and not to accomodate any other form of transportation. Most are located on busy artery roads with inadequate sidewalks or unsafe pedestrian/biking conditions. Connectivity between suburban office parks and suburban housing developments is often extremely limited by design.
So many people see the options as this:
- Live in an place where you can walk to most everything, except for your drive to work.
- Live in a place close to work where you're still going to have to drive to work, and also drive to everything else.
I get all that. I just don't get the wanting to drive for 45 minutes to work or placing walking to a restaurant as more important than a shorter commute to work. Oh well, we all agree central city living is better than suburban at least. We all just have our different reasons for doing so.
I'm sure a balance of work and play is the important thing. But if I worked at a rendering plant, why in the hell would I want to live nearby?
What also hasn't been mentioned here is the school systems. I live in Grandview for that reason as well, one day my kid(s) will be going to good schools. Columbus schools? Not so much. And don't say 'well then send your kids to private schools' because not everyone can afford that.
In any city I've lived in, I've always lived centrally. My jobs have tended to be in the suburbs. I have always asked myself why more office-y jobs aren't more centrally located, at least the ones I have had. I have finally gotten the live in the city and work in the city thing down, but my company wants to possibly move their office to DC suburbs. :: gripe ::
I hope the suburbs are going bust, or at least those suburban office park hell holes, because I'm tired of working in them. But for all the hassle that would and/or could come from living centrally and working in a suburb, I'd choose central living EVERY time.
bucki12 said:
Is the generation Y thing more just a cycle for that 15-32 age demographic?I don't plan on living in Hilliard, but I do not think my parents did either.
I think that's a bit of a big unknown. A large chunk of Gen Y professionals have delayed the "settling down" phase and it will be interesting to see how that plays out once marriages and children increase.
Most of Gen Y (1982 - 2001) isn't even close to that late 20s - early/mid 30s period (which probably use to be younger) when you realize that you can't do everything and have to actually slow down and pick some sort of direction for your life because others are now dependent on you (Again, the marriage / kid thing). Not that a majority sampling of my friends is anything statistically significant, but up until the past year or two, most of my friends were still posting party pics on Facebook. Now, photos of their weddings, kids, and houses have kind of replaced their thoughts on pop culture and restaurant checkins.
Also, you have to remember the Gen Yers that didn't go to college, etc. My wife went to a school where a lot of the kids got married and/or pregnant a few years after high school, so they've been living the "settled down" life since their early 20s. Not sure how large that percentage is, but the majority from her hometown and likely a good chunk of middle America certainly don't line up with the narrative.
In the end, I usually take these infographics like I take a compass. It's letting us know the direction we're heading, but it doesn't give us an address and we may decide to personally go a different direction.
local champion said:
I get all that. I just don't get the wanting to drive for 45 minutes to work or placing walking to a restaurant as more important than a shorter commute to work. Oh well, we all agree central city living is better than suburban at least. We all just have our different reasons for doing so.
I used to live in the central city and commuted to The Limited for awhile, and to Stringtown Road for awhile. With the reverse commute (everyone headed into Downtown in the morning while I'm leaving and vice versa in the evening) it wasn't really that bad. 15-20 minutes one way.
I'm not a big fan of driving either, so I don't want to ever have even a smaller daily driving commute like that ever again.
That being said, if my alternative back then was living on Morse Road or in Grove City so I only had a 5 minute work commute, I'm happy I chose Downtown instead.
ricospaz said:
What also hasn't been mentioned here is the school systems. I live in Grandview for that reason as well, one day my kid(s) will be going to good schools. Columbus schools? Not so much. And don't say 'well then send your kids to private schools' because not everyone can afford that.
There are a lot of great schools in Columbus Public, and a lot of bad ones too. So there are options for getting a good education within CPS, but it takes a little navigating the system to figure it all out, or intentionally living within a very specific area for the schools, ie: Clintonville.
That being said, our property taxes (which pay for schools) are around a third of some of our friends who live in suburban communities. So there is a cost offset that can be budgeted for if you do decide to go the private route. We recently looked into a private school as a backup to the lottery system, and with the Ed Choice scholarship program, the cost of private schooling worked out to be pretty minimal (around $1000 per year in our case). We ended up not needing to go that route though, and lotteried into a good school.
That being said, I believe these trends are largely comparing urban areas to suburban areas, and not city boundaries to suburban boundaries. Grandview is denser than portions of the City of Columbus that lie outside of 270. The trends that the Millenial Generation are affecting will more likely weigh in favor of an urban community like Grandview over a suburban-style housing development that lies within the outerlying areas of the city of Columbus.
This is all about density, walkability, people-centric infrastructure, community and amenities. If a community has that, then the technical terminology/wording of what that community is doesn't really matter.
Walker said:
That being said, if my alternative back then was living on Morse Road or in Grove City so I only had a 5 minute work commute, I'm happy I chose Downtown instead.
Funny, I would most definitely would have lived in Grove City or on Morse. I really hate driving that much. I previously lived and worked downtown in a midwestern city. Our office downtown was moving to another location downtown, and my group was given the option of moving out to another office we had located in the suburbs. The group jumped on this chance, as I was the only one in the city, and we moved 40 minutes away from the city. I moved to a condo 2 minutes from the suburban office park just to be close to work.
Anyway, what I find funny is that my hatred for driving basically fuels my passion for urban living and working.
driving gives you an opportunity to get important things done,like putting on makeup, eating supper,and changing clothes.
I lived and worked right off of Morse for a little while. It wasn't that bad. You do need to drive (not very walkable) but everything I needed was a mile or two away. It was convenient and I didn't use much gas.
Though, I do like living in the city and being able to bike and walk more.
pedex said:
wheel
steam engine
internal combustion engine
vaccines
antiobiotics
manned flight
wheeled powered vehicles
tools
electricity
gunpowder
etcversus a whole bunch of inventions which are nothing more than evolutionary extensions of inventions which changed our ability to overcome physical and natural limitations
Internet
human genome sequencing
birth control pill
cell phone
GPS
MRI
da Vinci surgical system
hybrid-electric vehicle
The notion that technological progress is "leveling off" is so completely foreign that I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's never been faster--and it's still accelerating.
Seriously. Subscribe to the KurzweilAI.net RSS feed. You don't even need to follow the futuristic essays of the site's namesake, though I obviously highly recommend those as well.
dubdave00 said:
I think that's a bit of a big unknown. A large chunk of Gen Y professionals have delayed the "settling down" phase and it will be interesting to see how that plays out once marriages and children increase.Most of Gen Y (1982 - 2001) isn't even close to that late 20s - early/mid 30s period (which probably use to be younger) when you realize that you can't do everything and have to actually slow down and pick some sort of direction for your life because others are now dependent on you (Again, the marriage / kid thing). Not that a majority sampling of my friends is anything statistically significant, but up until the past year or two, most of my friends were still posting party pics on Facebook. Now, photos of their weddings, kids, and houses have kind of replaced their thoughts on pop culture and restaurant checkins.
Also, you have to remember the Gen Yers that didn't go to college, etc. My wife went to a school where a lot of the kids got married and/or pregnant a few years after high school, so they've been living the "settled down" life since their early 20s. Not sure how large that percentage is, but the majority from her hometown and likely a good chunk of middle America certainly don't line up with the narrative.
In the end, I usually take these infographics like I take a compass. It's letting us know the direction we're heading, but it doesn't give us an address and we may decide to personally go a different direction.
My prediction is that when Gen Y comes of age they will split between the central city and suburbs, resulting in a win for the cities in terms of population growth and a full-on economic, cultural, social and spiritual revival. But the suburbs Gen Y does choose to settle in will for the most part be places like Grandview or Old Dublin, as opposed to Hilliard or the Polaris area, with downtowns and community settings that are densely developed, walkable and social (e.g. parks like Goodale, and commercial districts like Grandview Ave). Outlying county seats like Lancaster and Delaware that are still more old town than exurban sprawl will also benefit from an influx of Gen Yers as well as some aging Boomers.
Also, an ongoing need for job and location flexibility will continue to necessitate renting/apartment living over 30 year mortgages. Not that people won't own homes, but circumstances will result in less home ownership among Gen Y than previous generations.
dubdave00 said:
In the end, I usually take these infographics like I take a compass. It's letting us know the direction we're heading, but it doesn't give us an address and we may decide to personally go a different direction.
If you want something in an article format rather than infographic, go here:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/forums/topic/the-great-migration-of-the-21st-century
or here:
http://www.columbusunderground.com/forums/topic/no-mcmansions-for-millennials
NEOBuckeye said:
My prediction is that when Gen Y comes of age they will split between the central city and suburbs, resulting in a win for the cities in terms of population growth and a full-on economic, cultural, social and spiritual revival.
One prediction that I'd like to throw out there is that the oldest set of GenYers will also serve as "early adopters" when it comes to hitting that "settling down" phase. If there's enough of an influx of early adopters with regard to buying homes, getting married and having kids in more urban neighborhoods, then others will follow behind them. Few people want to be the first person to do anything. It's much easier to be a follower where a trail has already been partly blazed.
If I were a city/civic leader, I'd be hard at work right now trying to figure out how to help those early adopters adopt in here Columbus. We're welcoming the addition of new apartments aimed at GenY/YPs, but that's a short term solution. What are we planning for them 5-10 years down the road as their needs begin to change?
I do agree with you, NEOBuckeye, about a population split between settling in urban and suburban locations would be a net win for urban neighborhoods. Populations are so small in some areas where populations have historically declined that it doesn't really take a whole lot to move the needle. Throw 1000 new residents into a neighborhood like East Franklinton and you've got radical transformation occurring. Throw 1000 people into a new subdivision somewhere in southern Delaware county, and I don't know if anyone would really bat an eye at anything other than the 5% uptick in rush hour traffic congestion in that area.
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