A series of articles in the Los Angeles Times highlights some of the major changes in population demographics expected over the next forty or fifty years. Among other things, these changes soon will produce movement of the largest youth population in human history (over one billion young people) into job and housing markets. In addition, the wave of baby boomers shortly will crash into retirement like a tsunami onto the beach. The choices made by these two groups (along with the smaller but no less significant climate change induced migrations) on how and were they will live may change almost everything we now know.
For this post I would like to speculate a moment on how modern electronic communication and social media may affect this flood of young people and retirees, specifically regarding where they may live and what they may do there. It may be true that in a complex endeavor like predicting future life styles and trying to prepare for them the observations of those trying peek into the future are usually partial and distorted and often produce false views of the situation leading to inappropriate actions. Nevertheless, almost everything we do as individuals or as a society is based upon what we believe the future will bring us. Therefore, it is essential in considering where and how we live that we try to reduce that ambiguity and risk by accounting for as many potential effects as we can. While this post is certainly not the place to try to predict the future, I thought some anecdotal information may give the reader something to think about.
Recently I had the opportunity to dine with a highly respected jurist and later an international consultant on the creation and operation of judicial systems for emerging countries. Upon retirement from these distinguished professions he transitioned without hitch to a career as an accomplished and successful sculptor whose works adorn several public and private sites in the Silicon Valley area of California.
I asked him how, if at all, modern communication technology (of which like many of his generation he is at best a novice in its use) affected his transition. He responded with a series of examples. One of which was that he was able to track appearances of well-known teachers and practitioners in courses at the art departments in universities near his home and sign up for their courses. Generally, it seemed that the technology as he used it reduced the time and cost of learning and practicing his new career. To him the technology was simply another tool that made his endeavors better and more efficient.
Those born just before World War II as well as the Boomers born just after may be the first generation in history where, thanks to the advances in modern medicine and the economic benefits of almost continuous rising economies, now live long enough and healthy enough for many to have experienced multiple careers. Well after the traditional age of retirement many of us now can embark also on additional careers thanks in part to modern communication technology.
A few days after that dinner, I spoke with a young man who I have known. He has forgone college and makes his living primarily buying and selling things on the internet (a traditional occupation irrevocably changed by modern technology). He indicated that he still would like to "acquire" things like a sports car, however he is not willing to forgo the many claims on his interests and time by returning to school or working at a job for someone else. He believes the internet gives him enough information to learn what he needs for whatever enterprise he sets his sight on. He said that he prefers living in an urban setting and while he may consider living in a rural small town, he would never consider a suburb. When I asked how the technology has changed him, he said that he did not know because he does not recall a time beyond childhood where it did not exist. "But," he added, "although I have many friends on the internet, and I get together with many of them that live near by, I have begun to find that I am becoming more and more anxious when I find my self in the physical presence of many people I do not know."
Perhaps we are facing a future of cocooning-with-technology among the young raised with it and technology-as-tool approach for those who experienced different communication approaches. It depends to some extent on whether my interviewees represent a sufficiently large group or trend to make an economic and social difference. I suspect they do.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a current lack of serious scholarship on the potential revolutionary social implications of modern electronic communications technology. For example, for those who have had to struggle with organizing their notes or almost everything else in their life needing organizing, a new application may be a godsend. Those who have grown up with the application on the other hand, may never have to consider the principles of organization. It is not so much which is better or preferable, but like a stone thrown into pond sends out ripples that ultimately affect the lake shore, it may be advantageous to have some idea of the scope of its affects and its implications.
With physical planning for where and how we live, given the immense personal and social resources we invest in our communities, the ability to understand these implications becomes even more urgent.
Much of physical planning boils down to trying to find efficient ways of achieving assumed and often conflicting goals over time (e.g.,the planning for infrastructure such as sewers for people who may choose to live on yet unbuilt cul-de-sacs at some time in the future). The interface between the emerging demographics and the effect of modern communication and social technology on how and where these people will live, needs to be added to whatever physical, social and environmental assumptions we wrestle with as we try to figure out markets, marketing, infrastructure and design of our future communities.
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Today's Quotes:
"Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little."
Plutarch
"It's simple: It's the shit you don't need for the life you don't want."
by TheChop
“Never forget It was just 35 years more or less from Shakespeare to Louis XIV ; From the French and Indian War to the Louisiana Purchase ; From ‘Et Tu., Brute’ to the kid in the manger; From Fred Allen to Laugh-In.”
Peter Grenell
