Popular Belief #7: Urban Millennials have entirely new expectations of their cities.
They dream of a high-density city they can walk around in, smartphone in hand, surfing the web.
This last popular belief sums up all the previous ones in the figure of the Millennial as a connected urban youth living in a “metropolitan village” that is dense, accessible, and has all the important services of a big city within walking distance. What the existence of this Millennial “myth” shows is not so much a biased or partial vision of youth than the effort made by various stakeholders (cities, marketing companies) to create a desirable figure (of an inhabitant, of a client), whose supposed expectations can serve as a guide to action, as even traditional points of reference are blurred. The Millennial thus becomes much more an archetype than a stereotype.
And in fact, it is difficult to distinguish expectations specific to Millennials with respect to their cities. For Julien Damon, “the attitudes of urban youth toward their city are not radically or even very different from those of adults. Generally, both groups favor the same criteria for defining quality of life in the city.” Like previous generations, urban youth surveyed ranked cost of living, safety, and infrastructure quality at the top of their priorities. By the same token, the Urban Land Institute underlines the similarity of expectations of American Millennials for a neighborhood or community with those of other generations: quality of the environment (water and air) and access to healthy food come in first and second as criteria for what makes a neighborhood or community attractive, both for Millennials and for their elders, and this, regardless of where they live (in the city or not, in a high- or low-density area).
Moreover, the preference of young people aged 18 to 35 for high-density, easily walkable cities is not as pronounced as popularly believed; in the United States, for example, it concerns only about half of them. Thus, just 51% of American Millennials prefer homes in more dense neighborhoods designed for travel on foot, as opposed to single-home neighborhoods requiring the use of a car, although this proportion is higher than among Baby Boomers (43%).
As well, while the growing craze for high-density mixed-use spaces is often primarily attributed to Millennials (“Millennials represent a strong driver of demand for compact, mixed-use development formats, in suburban or other locations”: Urban Land Institute), it is not the prerogative of those aged 18 to 35. The Urban Land Institute also notes that “just over half (52%) of all Americans and 63% of the millennial generation would like to live in a place where they do not need to use a car very often.” For Markus Moos, this trend can be explained in part by the rapid expansion of the service economy within cities, which especially benefits from this type of high-density and easily accessible environment, and which has led to increasing emphasis on urban amenities (cultural and recreational facilities, beautified streetscapes, etc.).
However, Millennials do appear partial to high-density neighborhoods. According to demographer Dowell Myers, these Millennials will maintain an interest throughout their lives for walkable neighborhoods that offer access to retail as well as an efficient connection to public transit. While he believes Millennials will gradually move toward the suburbs as their households grow, particularly, like previous generations, as they become parents, the lifestyle that many will have experienced as young, single urbanites in higher density and accessible city centers will continue to influence their choices throughout their lives. This expectation for higher-density spaces can also be seen in young people living in periphery or lower-density areas.
We can see how focusing on expectations can easily lead from description to prescription: since a given (desirable) category of the population has expectations (description), an answer must be provided (prescription/action). The risk, naturally, is of transforming the expectations of a specific category (generation or even specific group within a generation) into standards (that must be valid and desirable for everyone).
To what degree has the figure of the young, connected urban Millennial, having grown up with Internet access as almost a right and a fact, and supposedly bearing a request for permanent and fluid connectivity, contributed to the growing deliberation on the development of connectivity in public spaces? In partnership with private stakeholders, cities are now reflecting on new solutions for providing connectivity in public spaces. This has already led to the appearance of LinkNYC WiFi terminals in New York City, developed by the company Intersection, and the launch of Veniam in Porto, which is transforming public buses and taxis into WiFi hotspots.
The images conveyed definitely correspond to that of the urban and connected Millennial. This figure may have served as a trigger for deliberation, if not action, by acting as a magnifying mirror for societal mutations taking place as a result of the advent of new technologies. And it can serve just as well today to market this policy effectively by associating it with the seductive figure of the active youth. But the interest in a policy for developing connectivity in public spaces lies in its ability to reflect usages beyond those of the sole figure of the young connected urbanite (who already has efficient connection tools) by addressing and adapting to, perhaps as a priority, those forgotten by the digital era, including isolated populations (elderly, jobless or living in poverty) who may not have a home Internet connection, mobile data plan or smartphone, or perhaps foreign tourists who lack a mobile phone connection.
This article is part of our installment “Factcheck: Millennials, an Urban Legend?”, in which La Fabrique de la Cité deconstructs the Millennial stereotype and analyzes this generation’s rapport to the city. Read the integral version of this Factcheck on our website.
