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How do you get researchers to move back on campus?
By adamg on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 3:42pm
BostInnovation reports on a city-sponsored session today that focused on how to build housing in the city's "Innovation District" on the South Boston waterfront that would attract researchers and scientists to live where they work:
... [I]t seems likely that the Innovation District will eventually include buildings designed with very small apartments created in innovative, non-traditional layouts. More than one architect suggested so-called "barbell" style apartments - fat at both ends, with skinny hallways in the middle. These could comfortably house adult roommates, and be laid out as tenants see fit. Many of the developers in the room seemed to like the idea of smaller apartments - provided housing regulations in the city could be relaxed - because densely populated apartment complexes can offset the high costs of developing new buildings.
Other suggestions for residential space layouts focused on shared communal spaces - though many of the designers in the room seemed to feel that shared bathrooms would be a bad idea. ...
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personal vehicles won’t
Hipsters only, please.
As a researcher I would never
As a researcher I would never live in a place like this.
Any reason you care to share,
Any reason you care to share, or just knee-jerk snark?
Boston's flight problem is well known and troubling. It may not be a good idea, but it's at least an idea. What's yours?
Flight, what flight?
Flight? How do you figure? Boston's population has increased from 589,141 in 2000 to an estimated 645,000, today.
I wasn't clear that I meant
I wasn't clear that I meant the young adult population fleeing Boston as soon as they can.
EDIT TO ADD: By the way, Oldes and ultra-wealthy moving in from the horrible suburbs with their gross manners and giant polluting cars doesn't help keep Boston a healthy city.
Got stats?
This is one of those "facts" that is often claimed, but I never see any numbers. Does anybody have any real stats? And please, no stats that include the college population. That's what graduates do - they get a job somewhere. Some stick around, others leave for a whole host of reasons.
Oh, forget it.....I'd say something I would later regret....
Yep. Stats.
http://www.censusscope.org/us/m1123/chart_age.html
Take a look at the 25-29 population for the metro area in 1990 and 2000. This bears out what I am seeing on the streets of Boston versus Seattle or Portland: the young adult (post college) population has dropped by a quarter in that decade - probably more heading to 2010. 271,000 to 209,000 for males, similar drops for females. Note that the college and recent grad age population - the 20-24 - has dropped by a similar fraction. Both make up smaller percentages of the total population in 2000 than in 1990.
Overall, the metro area is getting older as whole.
Those aren't Boston stats
Those stats cover a much larger area than Boston, or even metro. Between the chart label saying "Boston, MA-NH", and the pop total of 6 million (2000), this table shows too great an area to prove what the poster claimed. I'd take street observations over this data.
*rolls eyes*
Boston is part of a metro area - which is why statisticians classify it as such. Last I checked, the city didn't have walls. The economy and the demography are on the scale of region, not local - which is a major part of the larger problems that the area runs into. You cannot use local solutions to regional problems unless they are part of a coordinated regional strategy.
Despite your naive dismissal of the actual numbers that you asked for, the area is losing young people. Full stop. The metro area is the proper unit of analysis here - it doesn't matter if those people are leaving Boston or Cambridge or Somerville or Arlington - they are leaving the area and that has broad ramifications for everything from the tax base of the state to the regional economy to the local property tax situation to the aid that Boston gets from the state.
As for "street observations", well, see above. In the 1990s there were a lot more younger people around these parts than there are now, IMHO. I notice this when I visit places with booming youth populations - the number of young people in Portland, Seattle and even NYC and San Francisco that I see in my "street observations" feels more like Boston USED to be.
Then again, you have to actually observe some streets now and again - not from a car, and in several different cities - to make inferential observations.
Young people leaving
Looking at the stats, it seems that the most notable population gains from 1990 to 2000 were of people in the prime earning years of their careers - ages 35 to 59. Is this really such a bad thing?
Perhaps the young, aimless folks go out to Chicago where they can be bass players and bar backs for cheaper, and people move back here when they have real jobs?
It will be interesting to see 2010
You are correct that mid-career people are a large bump of the population - that isn't a bad thing until they retire. It isn't a bad thing, unless you need less expensive, less experienced people to keep the costs down of what ever you get paid to do/produce. It is a bad thing that more and more post-graduate, post doctoral positions - like hospital training programs and research institutions - are reporting difficulties in recruiting because the cost of living is high relative to the pay they offer.
Where I work, I'm the second youngest on the technical staff and the most junior until my new assistant arrives September 1. Nearly everyone is in their 50s and 60s. That seems a bit lopsided to me, but we have trouble recruiting in part because the Boston area is not seen as an attractive and affordable destination. In order to afford to live here and take an entry level job that requires a BS, you pretty much have to be subsidized by wealthy parents.
You didn't really have add'l info
No disrespect, but you still didn't provide any data to support the claim that younger people are moving out.
RE: effects on local and state taxes? For the city, at least, having older people vs. younger would no doubt improve revenues - IMHO (lol!). New condo buildings on empty lots? Condos instead of apartment buildings? Those things increase property tax revenue.
Is this the correct
Is this the correct interpretation, though? Boston is likely to have an atypically large population of people aged 18 to 25. We should expect to therefore see a decline in the 25 to 29 group, then balance in the ages beyond that. I went to college here, almost all of my friends stayed for a few years after that, then there was an exodus of the people who were for various reasons looking for something else. Many returned to their original city or state, many when to grad school elsewhere, many found the job market here too competitive. At any rate, this happened around 25, 26, and then it stopped. I don't know anybody who has moved away since then.
Are we seeing a pattern that indicates one thing, but which we interpret to mean something else?
Keep rolling those eyes
This is what riggssm said:
The key word is "Boston". He didn't say "eastern Mass, plus southern NH and ME". Yes, I would also include the metro area - Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, etc. - in riggssm's comment, but I don't think he wanted to include Wellesley, Wprcester, Brockton, Hanover, Swampscott, Amesbury, New Bedford, Nashua, Portsmouth, or Portland. That data is useless in proving what he and you are claiming. Metro Boston represents much less than half of the data from your source, so the results are overwhelmed by the other populations.
My larger point is people like to make all sorts of claims on UHub, and others all agree because said claim is a trendy, cool, hip claim. "Man, Boston is getting OLD". I'm just looking for proof.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Swirl,
Looking at 2000 Census and 2008 American Community Survey Statistics from the Census Bureau, your observations are a bit off.
Assuming the 2008 data is right, Boston lost in the 25-34 range 11,686 residents (going from 124,762 to 113,077) while the 35-44 group gained 13,871 residents (going from 86,420 to 100,291) The net change in the prime 25-44 demo is +2,185.
Portland, on the other hand, has a similar trend. Between 2000 and 2008, the 25-34 group lost 8,161 residents (going from 97,000 to 88,839) while the 35-44 group gained 6,917, for a net loss of 1,244.
In data to compare the groups, in 2008 25-34 represented 18.4% of Boston's population while it represented 15.9% of Portland's. The 35-44 group represented 16.3% and 16.7% respectively.
Don't mean to talk up Beantown or talk down the Rose City, but things are not as bad here as you think.
Before you ask, the data is from factfinder.census.gov, with no good direct links to the data.
Oldes and Ultra-wealthy?
Was Oldes a reference to Oldesmobile cars moving into the city (I did not know that Oldes were related to Transformers). Or was that a reference to Older and Ultra-wealthy?
In any case while some of us are older chronologically, and hopefully sufficiently mature to not need to rely upon misspelled, poorly phrased and fatuous assumptions concerning personal wealthy, we are nevertheless as if not more committed to city life.
Oldes was, I believe,
Oldes was, I believe, originated by Choire and friends. It's a generally derogatory term that, in my example, refers to:
- the chronologically advanced types and their entitlement,
- the "mature" people who think that young and un-wealthy means no commitment to city life,
- the irony-challenged.
(Seriously. When done chastizing me for my style, check out your shitshow of a second sentence. Does that really scan well? Does the last phrase change tense or lose a word somehow? Booyakasha!)
Shared spaces
Just two days ago I was thinking how nice it would be if apartment buildings had communal areas that went beyond things like bike storage space or laundry rooms. Kitchen-type areas with common appliances; maybe things like a common printer/computer. Do 50 tenants living in a building all really need 50 microwaves each?
More so than a focus on reducing "footprints", it might help forge a stronger sense of community.
Ever live in a dorm?
50 microwaves means that I don't have to have your nasty exploded burrito filling all over my popcorn that night. Common areas just mean common headaches because the more people sharing the space, the more anonymity any one person gets to hide within when they break/screw something up and just move on leaving the nastiness for the rest of the building. That's how it goes with college dorms...that's how it would go with apartment buildings.
I hate those people
How about that guy who always left dirty plates in the sink and thought no one would figure out who it was when in fact everyone knew because everyone washed their plates right after they used them. God I hated that guy.
co-op vs. dorm
In a 30 person cooperative, everybody knows who left those dishes and which bed to put them in.
co-housing
I think co-housing might be along those lines -"living lightly": http://www.cambridgecohousing.org/
One place to start
Most researchers are of the age where they are starting families. Some people are childfree, but most are not. One of the biggest reasons I see people that my institution funds jumping ship for other institutions is finding a more family friendly environment - the guy with a 2 year old and infant triplets moving from London to Corvallis, OR being the most extreme.
Not to say that family housing should dominate - just pointing out that even "traditional" students with an advanced degree are typically 30 years old by the time they clear their post-doctoral work. Any housing mix has to reflect that reality.
We're all in luck!
Yes, we don't have the type of housing people need when they're in their 20's. I don't think it's "family" housing we need as much as it is "lower-cost" housing. ("Family" housing can be had in the outer-boroughs of Boston as well as in the suburbs - a short commute by public transportation.)
Perhaps this proposal will help, in a small way:
http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news139030.html
John, you ended up sorta
John, you ended up sorta making my point re: (the) Boston (metro area): affordable housing when you're a year out of school, the loans are coming due, you're making $27k in an entry-level, and putting out $1,000 p/mo in expenses ... well, it makes it pretty damn impossible to stay in (the) Boston (metro area) unless you want an unreasonably sadomasochistic commute.