| Enough Editorializing you whiny Millennial, get to the generations! How did we get into this situation in the first place? Easy. The people who first thought up of suburbia and all its glory were the likes of the Missionary Generation (Prophet gen; born in the years 1860 through 1882). Most notably, was Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959). You already know how I feel about Wright (assuming you read my interview http://www.millennials.com/loydqa.html), but Wright also did more than just build crappy artsy buildings. He designed a model of suburbia which demanded the use of cars, or airplanes. Henry Ford was also part of that generation, and he did a wonderful job of revolutionizing mass production of automobiles. The act of making autos more cheaply available to the masses was not in of itself bad, but it made accessible the notion that cars should do more than just replace horses. I should note that I do not think that cars are evil, or that they should be eliminated from our existence. If they were eliminated, then much rural transport would have to revert back to horses, as would much freight delivery (until freight rail is made available). Cars did a great thing in that they replaced the horse, but things went too far when people decided that the car should become the primary mode of transport, and even practically mandatory. The first generation to really embrace auto ownership was the Lost generation (Nomad gen; born from 1883 through 1900). They were the first to make owning cars really popular, and the "in-thing" to own. They also were the first to make supermarkets popular, and to buy houses in fledgling suburbs. One Lost figure stands out in freeway construction: Robert Moses. He sponsored much freeway construction, and even tried to build a freeway through mid-town Manhattan. Le Corbusier (born Charles Edouard Jeanneret; 1887 - 1965) virtually invented the Modernist notion of what cities should look like. He designed a Radiant City with skyscrapers in a park, and income-segregated housing areas. Think Houston, Los Angeles, or Miami for the general idea. The most prominent example (well, the only example) of his work in the US would be the UN building in New York. The GIs (Hero gen; born from 1901 through 1924) made auto ownership, the suburbs, and freeways among their own generational achievements. They were the generation who benefited from government-subsidized housing construction, and made the suburbs the lifestyle standard which it is today. A GI figure made the suburbs a popular phenomenon: William Levitt. He financed his own developments, including his famous Levittown. The most prominent voice for urbanity is a GI, and her name is Jane Jacobs. She wrote a lovely book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities. While it suffers from circa-1960 statistics, it lives as a great source of what makes great cities. The Silents (Artist gen; born from 1925 through 1942) did not do a great deal to help or hurt the suburban trend. While a few voices expressed disapproval of the suburbs, the vast majority followed the GIs, and bought most of the houses during the 1960s and 1970s. The Boomers (Prophet gen; born from 1943 through 1960) started the modern environmentalist movement, and protested loudly at many issues, but they also proved to be a prime market for "must-have" cars like the Ford Mustang, and VW Beetle (which many Silents also bought). While today they are the most visible generation for changing the way we live in cities, their generational habits indicate that they did little but exacerbate the GI/Silent shopping trend, and are responsible the housing booms of the 1980s and 1990s. Generation X (Nomad gen; born from 1961 through 1981) haven't hit their peak earnings years yet, and most probably haven't bought their first houses yet. As a generation, they have bought maybe half of the SUVs in the USA (the Boomers bought the other half). They are perhaps the first generation where the majority of them have been brought up in the suburbs. I don't know what their shopping habits will be, but if most people own their own houses in their 40s, they will be big factor in the housing market in the 2000s and 2010s, in the beginning and right in the middle of a Fourth Turning Crisis. I cannot predict the state of the economy in the 2000s and 2010s. This brings us to the Millennials (Hero gen; born from 1982 to 2002?). This generation has yet to exert its muscle in public life, and will not buy their houses until the 2020s and 2030s. I cannot tell what we will do as we get older, but it should be noted that the GIs pretty much let the railroad system atrophy. |