It’s the Economy, Stupid! | The Antiplanner

It’s the Economy, Stupid! | The Antiplanner

It’s the Economy, Stupid!

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At least once a week, the Antiplanner encounters an urban plan that assumes that millennials and other young people will be much less inclined to drive cars and own their own homes than Americans have been in the past. But a new study from researchers at UCLA reaches the same conclusions as other researchers reported by the Antiplanner: young people drive less because of the weak economy, not because they prefer to walk and take transit.

Is this the American Dream?
Similarly, a 2013 survey from PulteGroup, a home builder, finds that the vast majority of people between 18 and 34 aspire to own their own homes. Among those whose incomes are above $50,000, 65 percent say they hope to buy a home in the next year. Similar results were found from a 2012 poll by Better Homes & Gardens Realty and a 2011 survey by the National Association of Home Builders. Far from appreciating multifamily housing, the greatest fear of young people in New Zealand is that they will be stuck in apartments.


Or is it this?
Home builders and realtors have a vital stake in knowing future demand. If people really did prefer multifamily housing over single-family homes, as some planners assert, builders and realtors would be only too happy to build and sell such housing.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the economy will never recover, in which case homeownership and driving rates will remain down. As the Soviet Union proved, the key to a successful smart-growth policy of dense cities with minimal auto usage is poverty. With their focus on regulation, higher taxes, and subsidies only to favored companies and developers, many urban planners seem determined to make this happen. Let’s hope they fail.