Generation Y Wants the Dream Neighborhood, Not the Dream Home

• December 6, 2010

by Mark Wellborn

Generation Y** (or Gen Y) is much more interested in living in a neighborhood that they like rather than a home that they love, according to Neil Takemoto, founder of Cooltown Beta Communities, a company focused on “crowdsourced development of places with significant economic, environmental and social benefit.”

Takemoto’s reasoning hinges on the theory that this generation is “motivated by experiences not consumption or home size” and they will opt for smaller homes and apartments that are less expensive, so that they might have more money to enjoy those experiences.

Here are some other theories of Takemoto’s, a few of which are based on information from the Canadian housing study Drivers of Apartment Living in Canada for the Twenty-First Century:

• Micro lofts are the new McMansions i.e. 250 to 270 square foot units.

• If you have attainably-priced, walkable, urban, transit-oriented two-three bedroom apartments and micro lofts, Gen Yers are ready to move in asap.

• For Gen Yers, driving isn’t part of the American Dream anymore. Being connected is. That means walkable and transit-oriented, and that means downtowns and cities.

For more insights from Takemoto, click here.

**(Generation Y is a loosely applied label to people who were born between 1980 and 1990.)

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/generation_y_wants_the_dream_neighborhood_not_the_dream_home/2739