Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Provo's mayor welcomes influx of millennials

By David Kennard
davidbkennard.com

PROVO – Mayor John Curtis said he is welcoming millennials – the population representing the ages of 18-33 – because of the “influence the millennials are having on Provo.”

Provo mayor John Curtis is a friend to the millennial.
Source: provomayor.com/
He points to a recent Bloomberg Business report ranking Provo in second place where for cities where millennials are taking over the housing market.

The other top five cities include Des Moines, Iowa; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Lafayette, Indiana.

Millennials, characterized by many as the hip generation, also are making more money than their predecessors, delaying starting families and seeking places with cheaper home prices, according the Bloomberg report.

Provo, which happens to have the highest median home prices where millennials are moving, has another draw, a growing technology sector. According to Bloomberg, jobs in science and technology are luring the 20-somethings away from the big cities they prefer.

“It helps that it costs a lot less to buy in Des Moines, where the median listing price in August was $218,000. (In San Francisco, it was $738,000.) But it's also easy to forget that there are attractive jobs in all kinds of places — about half of jobs in science, tech, engineering, and math are located in the 20 biggest U.S. metros. The rest are in places like Huntsville, Ala., and Lincoln, Neb., cities that offer the appeal of lower costs of living,” the Bloomberg report stated.

So what makes hipsters so attractive to Provo?

Here's Curtis's list:

- Non-Judgmental: What you wear is not as important as who you are.

- Linear: Executives and staff are fluid in exchange of conversation and ideas. Everything is transparent. The new intern’s ideas are as welcome as the boss with 40 years in the business. In fact,millennial’s may be more important because he or she doesn’t have 40 years of paradigms.

- Media for outreach and to get informed: They get their news when they want it and where they want it. There are no unanswered questions for them.

- Embrace work/life balance: Gone are the strident working hours. Instead, the focus is more on getting quality work done. Art, design, and culture are as integral in the work space as they are at home. It’s about the journey for them.

- Fearless: Social mores don’t scare them.

- Socially conscious: Diversity is important to them and they give their environment more than just idle talk.

- Office setting: They’re not their most productive in a traditional office lay out.

Here's how the Pew Research Center describes millennials

- Digital Natives: They are the only generation for which these new technologies are not something they’ve had to adapt to

- Racial Diversity: Millennials diverse is driven by the large wave of Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have been coming to the U.S. for the past half century.

- Low levels of social trust. Sociologists say this might come from a feeling of vulnerability stemming from racial diversity an lower income levels.

- Economic Hardship: They have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income.

- Vote for Democrats: Although they claim to be independent politically, they are far more likely than older generations to vote for Democratic candidates.

- Self identification: They are less patriotic than older generations. Fewer are environmentalists than 
older generations. They are more likely that older generations to support gay rights. 

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